To Begin Normality
by DigiTails
Summary: Metroid x Halo. Two universes clash, and they will be torn apart if something isn't done about it, along with the threat of Pirates and Covenant. The military sets up the scientifically augmented SPARTANs and Samus to stop it all. Summary inside. Ch 33
1. Chapter 1 Of Beginnings

As promised:

Rating: T 16+ (for language, violence, and bloodshed. But if you can tolerate the games/books, this is cool)

Full summary: Two universes clash, and they will be torn apart if something isn't done about it, along with the threat of Pirates and Covenant. The military sets up the scientifically augmented SPARTANs and a hunter by the name of Samus Aran to stop the alien forces. The Chozo tell them to save the universe. Can they do both tasks at once?

Warnings: There might be the most negligible hints of Samus Aran and John 117 romance at the end. Both series are action and hard core adventure though, so this story will reflect that and refrain from overly mushy and out of character stuff. The only reason this comes up at all is as a warning if you can absolutely not tolerate it. Otherwise the fiction should be good. Also, I like to go on and on, so the chapters might be exceedingly long.

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Okay, my sincerest apologies folks. I know something about Metroid...mostly from Wikipedia. Although I've played Prime, Echoes and Fusion. So anything I screw up, let me know as soon as you can. I'm several chapters in already, but I'd like to try and fix it in the future. But Samus was a Lieutenant, right? Also Adam might be badly done, I don't know. All I know is that he was her CO and calls her Lady. The whole Princess thing is my idea. 

Mhm...I really should do a prologue, but I can't (more like I'm too damn lazy). In Halo this takes shortly after the Spartans land on Reach, but events have happened different then in the first novel. First, the Spartans never split up, they were ambushed by Covenant before they could, but they managed to get those too wounded to walk hidden somehow. Also, Cortana came with the Chief when he went to the space station. This applies to a whole different universe theory I have. The Halo universe that I shove into here was the same up until Reach's fall, then I changed things. Okay, its not the canon universe, although almost the same. In Metroid time, Samus _just_ left the BSL space station she was on for the mission and destroyed SR388 and the Galactic federation _just_ found out what she did. Mhm, like a span of two three hours maybe?

Oh! This is written in Halo story format with the beginnings of chapters. Goody.

Okay now for the conversation system. When someone's using their vocals or at least they're saying something that makes noise that travels through the air to someone's ears "" and «» will be used. Good ol' English quotes are for human talk, people speaking English. The double angle, Spanish, quotes are for non-human talk. If its translated alien language for your convince, I'll bold it, if not, I've done nothing to it. Anything in italics here is for emphasis only.

For inner self-thoughts and telepathic communiqué '' and ‹› will be used. It's the same basic system as above, just its marked off by one less thing. (apostrophe for human speak, ‹› for alien speak bolded and or italicized or not by the same principle)

For further complexity, anything bolded, but not marked by anything mentioned above is for text messages and the headers of chapters, only. Anything not marked but in italics is either for emphasis (normally one word) and whole lines and paragraphs are Choujin ghosts speaking, bolded or not at my discretion.

Paragraph breaks make the difference between my drabbling and babbling and the actual story itself.

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**0800 Hours, August 30, 2552 (Military Calendar)**

**Hunter-Class Gunship, Epsilon Eridani System, surface of Reach**

'Crap!' Was the thought that crossed the mind of a warrior clad in an orange suit. "Adam," A muffled and distorted voice came calmly through the voice speaker of the technologically advanced suit. Her fingers flew over the keys as she hastily moved weaved her ship in and out of blasts.

"What do you want, Princess?" Came a tart reply, the small shipboard AI was busy using the ships systems to scan the area. It was trying to digest the information in a few cycles, the task consumed most of it's capacity.

The female bounty hunter sat in the seat quickly clattering away at a console, passively ignoring the jest, "Where are we?"

Adam took several cycles to answer, "A planet with a nitrogen oxide atmosphere, humans and thousands of non humans."

"Humans?" Blue eyes scanned the ships view screen through a green reflective visor. All she saw were suited aliens. Wait, there they were, a few humans. She could barely make out their iridescent green armor out of the mess of blue energy beams. They were outnumbered and having potshots taken at them, but they were dodging with inhuman speed. There were corpses strewn behind them. An image of a similar scenario flashed in her mind, anger growing in her chest. Although there were subtle differences, such as different aliens, less humans, and an entirely different planet.

"Adam, fend off those damn aliens. I'm going out, be ready to pick me up."

"As you say." A sleek door slid open on the top of the ship as it stared firing at nearby purple machines with deadly aim of white-hot plasma. The warrior jumped down, barely a sound was made as the half a ton suit of armor and human hit the ground. A barrel built into the suit closed all its openings and condensed before expanding in a different shape, its open conduits glowed black and white.

Beams of the energy were opened on the aliens, their flying vehicles falling out of the sky in a few hits. The armored humans noticed the new presence, but most of them were glad of the help, even for them, this was tough. The computer's voice floated in the helmet of the hunter.

"I sense energy building up in orbit from the aliens' ships in orbit. They're aiming at the planet. This will be enough to instantly incinerate the areas, and surrounding areas, of their targets. I believe their first target would be close enough to here to kill you and the humans."

A curse was muttered in a different language before, "Thanks, Adam." She turned to run to the humans. "Can those suits survive in space?" She fired a shot at a flying ship, it fell, the top opening up, showing the flyer, a tall blue armored alien with spilt lower jaws, was dead. The entire inside of the ship was burned and parts of it were on fire from the heat.

One of them looked at the alien, then at her, "Yes, two hours. Why?" Suspicion tainted the feminine tone.

"This area is about to be melted." With a quick correction form the computer, "On the surface" was added to her statement.

She sensed worry ease off their forms, but most of them remained still, "Do you have any space worthy ships?" She quickly changed tactics, what good would it do to bring them in space without a ship?

"Maybe, a few kilometers south." Another, male, pointed behind them. Even though theirs had been destroyed in landing, he had seen another near the "base", if it could be called that. He thought it was in working condition.

The same curse was repeated, «C'jinlor.» "Adam." Wait for acknowledgement, "They say there is a ship a few kilometers south of our position. Find it, and bring it here." Wait again as the computer replied, "Yes, I'd like my ship as well." Wait again, "Then hurry." She turned back to the soldiers, "_If _you have any wounded, get them now."

Six disappeared. They came back minutes later hauling and helping six others like them along.

A drop ship with thick armor plating flew towards them moments later, along with the ship shaped like a commonly thought of Martian ship, but with the bottom missing, came up behind the group of twenty humans. "Thanks computer." She turned to face them, "Get in, no time to waste." The drop ship's door opened into a ramp as it floated. The humans ran in, a few weighed down from the new wounded arrivals, but more helped ease the load, the door closed after the last one was in.

The hunter jumped and crouched on her own ship, metal boots adhering to the surface as the two ships sped off the planet, just in time. The white-hot plasma befell the planet, molten rock spewing up where it hit, air vaporizing. The heat spread over the planet in an area, killing everything on the surface, all the humans and aliens. The hatch opened, a paper-thin barrier going down through the ship's interior to prevent everything loose succumbing to the vacuum. She jumped in, the ship sealed, the hull heated a little as they left the atmosphere.

"Adam, open a comm." The view screen's vision shrunk to half of it's current state, the other half opening a comm line with the other ship. "So, would you like control of your ship, or should my computer handle it?"

On the other ship before the line was opened they viewed the sight with horror, bile churning in their stomachs. All they saw were alien ships, they couldn't even find their human mother ship.

"So, would you like control of your ship, or should my computer handle it?" The distorted voice cracked open on their speakers. It was distorted so much, they couldn't tell if the speaker was female or male.

"Your computer can handle it." Their apparent leader, the one to talk with their helper, sat down in the pilot's chair. "Can you?"

"Can I what?"

Another spoke up, they all knew each other well enough to know what was up, "Our squad leader was in space during the attack on the planet, and two of our team mates as well. Are they in the rubble?"

"Armor like yours?"

"Yes."

"I can try, no guarantees. Computer?"

"All ready scanning." In a few seconds results flashed across the visor of the warrior's visor. She read through the results four lines at a time. The line cracked to life again. On the drop ship, it was an eternity, everything went slow for them, but this was extra slow.

"There were three hits, like you said." They sighed in relief, "I'm sorry, but one of them is dead. He died of a lack of oxygen, his suit is full of carbon dioxide, he's nearly on the other side of the planet. However, the other two, nearest to us, is among the remains of a vessel like yours. One is female, she might as well be dead, her vitals are just barely clinging to life. The other is male, there are several broken bones. The oxygen supplies in both of their suits is just about gone, however."

They all digested the information. One of them died floating in space, the worst death to befall one of them all their enhanced skills were worth nothing, floating helplessly in space. The same was about to befall the other two. They knew the female, 058 Linda. But which of their men was about to die? Was it John, the survivor? Or was it James, the incredibly determined?

"Save them, please."

"Adam?"

"On it."

"They'll have to come aboard my ship. The vacuum would suck out all the air in your ship, and I don't know how long we'll be in space. I can treat one, but not both of them. Can you guys take that suit off easily?"

"Yes...but," There was a pause, "We don't know how it comes off completely, it took a lab fifteen minutes to make it fit right, and we can't wear anything under it for it to work properly." An afterthought, "The helmet comes off easily."

"Right." She closed the comm temporarily, "Adam, inspect that armor completely to make sure you take it off right so you can put it back on before treating either of them." The comm opened seamlessly.

"As you say. Arriving." The next statement was private in the hunter's heads up display, **Samus, you will have to pull them in.**

Samus stood up and walked over to the hatch, micro-thin barrier opening as the hatch slid down through it. She passed through the barrier and it rose back up, her boots adhered to the metal so she wouldn't go tumbling into space. She carefully positioned herself, near one of his splayed limbs, she grabbed a wrist and pulled him carefully in, trying not to over do herself in zero-gee. She walked back to the hatch, standing him gently in front of her so they could both enter at the same time, his metal boots clanged noiselessly against the hull. Metal armor bumped against each other as the hatch slid open. Suddenly she felt the half ton of armor and human she was holding as they succumbed to the ship's artificial gravity. Her suit quickly adjusted to its max strength ability to augment her Choujin enhanced strength.

Samus kicked open her bed, placed him on it, and took of the helmet. His face was pale from lack of sunlight, freckles stuck out on his features. He gagged as clean oxygen filled his lungs; the ship turned the carbon dioxide into oxygen and discharged the extra carbon outside. "He's alive, and has freckles." She said this to hope that they could recognize him by that feature.

There were silenced sighs of relief all around in the Pelican, it was the Master Chief.


	2. Chapter 1 Of Beginnings 2

Samus stood up, computer generated realistic holographic curtains formed around the bed, blocking him from sight. In a matter of seconds there was a hum of energy as the ship scanned, and removed the armor, it as transported a few meters away, discarded upon the floor. The computer used beams of energy to reset and fix the bones in milliseconds. There was another spike of energy as the armor was replaced on his form. 

Samus placed the helmet on the floor next to the bed. The curtains disappeared, "Its done, all bones fixed. We just have to wait for him to regain consciousness as the oxygen goes back into his system. I'm going back out for the other."

The door lowered, letting her back out into the void. With a clack sound her boots stuck to the ship as it moved them once again, this time towards Linda. She carefully, much more carefully, pulled her inside.

The Spartans waited for news on Linda.

The Master Chief "woke up" in seconds, just as Samus left the to inky blackness of space.

"In fact," the computer spoke up the moment Samus got back in, "he's regained consciousness now."

It was empty in space, too empty, and lonely too. The Master Chief floated in space, unable to move much, he felt extremely helpless. The oxygen in his armor was running low, he was nearly frozen too. He tried not to think about his impending demise hoping that the Covenant would notice him still alive, being blasted to bits would be far more pleasant then this...this fate. Hanging around, not able to move, no chance of rescue, just floating helplessly.

"This is just great." He heard a voice _inside_ his mind call out, "How are we supposed to kill the Covenant now?"

He wanted to move his stiff and numb limbs, knock the interface where the AI that was in his mind was attached to make her shut up. Her comments weren't helping his state, at all.

His motion detector blared with motion, a large blip in the radar, no, make that two large blips. Then again, the radar had been going haywire with all the debris passing by him. Perhaps the Covenant had finally decided to destroy him, hopefully. Lest it prove to be more floating pieces of hull. Either way, he _was _going to die soon.

How much time had passed? An hour? Two? More over to the two, his suit was running out of air. He had always secretly hoped that he would never have to test how long he could go without oxygen, his old suit only being able to last an hour and a half. Against his own will his eyes shut, no matter how hard he tried to keep the dark ocular organs open.

"Those are moving too fast for debris," The AI said aloud, "If they were Covenant fighters they would have blasted us by now. Perhaps a rescue?" Those words sparked the tiniest bit of hope in the noncom's mind.

In a few moments he felt something grab his wrist. It felt oddly like a human hand. Was the over abundance of carbon dioxide finally getting through his decades of military training and practice? He knew that most people went insane on the borders of death like this, even the toughest people were known to go haywire. But not a Spartan, then again, he never knew.

But this was no figment of his imagination. He was dragged, or he was pretty sure he was dragged. In space, one could never tell, for there was no atmosphere to cause friction for one to be sure; he was too numb from cold to remember to notice the slight pull on his shoulder. But his position was changed, carefully, his captor was trying not to overdo itself in the zero gravity of space, he was sure of that. Cortana had suddenly decided to be quiet, it was better that way, they didn't know if this was Covenant or not.

He was jerked down suddenly, feet lifting up slightly. Then he felt himself sag in his rescuer's, or captor's, arms. Perhaps the half a ton of armor and Spartan had caught it by surprise. He felt himself be brought through something, like a thin warm waterfall. Clean o-two filled his nostrils and lungs, the sharpness being brought back to his senses, and he was reminded with a jolt of his broken reinforced bones. He pushed the pain away, he was a Spartan, a super-solider, pain like this was nothing.

In the sudden gravity he felt his body lifted up, the whine of metal gears, something clatter open, the puff of air and hum of an electronic door closing. Was he on board an alien vessel? Whatever it was, there was artificial gravity, he didn't feel the spin of a ship's gyration for gravity on the human ships he was used to. There was a small click sound as he felt his helmet was removed.

The clean oxygen filled his lungs, without the metallic scrubbers of his helmet to filter it. He coughed once involuntarily. His lungs quickly breathing out excess carbon dioxide unrestricted by his helmet's filters.

"He's alive, and has freckles." The sudden foreign voice was distorted by something, but it lacked the distinct warble of a construct. This person was identifying him, but for what purpose?

He heard something shift, should he dare open his eyes? Perhaps this person believed him to be unconscious; most humans would be by now. He heard a whir of energy around him, his body armor removed, no teleported off his skin. He felt exposed, the armor acted like a second skin.

He felt a warmness spread in him from his broken bones and bruises. It wasn't painful, like it had been at first, as if the fires of hell had been unleashed within him, but soothing. Another whir of energy, the armor was put back on him. The bio-fiber below readjusting to his skin and refitting itself perfectly, the way it always had.

"Its done, all bones fixed. We just have to wait for him to regain consciousness as the oxygen goes back into his system. I'm going out for the other." He pushed away the urge to laugh, he had been up for the last while, but, he had nearly blacked out earlier, another minute and he would have been unconscious. However, what was his main concern was this other, and who was this person addressing?

He slit open his eyes, he caught orange armor through the narrow field of vision. What in the hells? The military had people running around in suits like that, at least, not that he knew of. If it wasn't devising more suicidal schemes to fight off the Covenant, the Office of Naval Intelligence was making new secret products.

Once he was sure it wouldn't be noticed, he opened his eyes completely. He took a good look at what was surrounding him, he looked below him, to where he had heard the plunk, his helmet. He looked down, barely making out the strange figure in orange armor past his chest plate. The door opened in the ceiling he saw open space. He waited for the space around them to explosively decompress and instantly kill him. But it didn't come.

What the? Looking to his side, he was on a bed, resting on white sheets. He took a deep breath, calculating how long it would take him to get his helmet on. He just didn't feel secure without it. Especially considering that open space was just waiting to take him but wasn't for reasons he couldn't begin to fathom.

Inside the interface Cortana processed a sense of growing irritation. She had managed to tag one of the ships, UNSC, a D77-TC class drop ship, nicknamed a "Pelican." Now without direct interface with the suit she couldn't continue.

The Master Chief watched as the figure moved onto a piece of plating that lifted up and resealed the ship. He felt the bed shift as something crawled onto it. He looked down to see a small creature with large luminous green eyes, blue fur and the shape of a Koloa staring unblinkingly at him. Its cheeks were pink and there were two antennae at the top of its head. The creature moved forwards and poked at his cheek.

It jumped and fell off of the bed when the hatch moved down again a moment later. It scurried to a corner of the ship. The figure from before was holding something, and he could barely make out the iridescent gold-green glow of the armor Spartan's wore. Who was that?

"In fact," he heard what clearly had to be an AI speak up, "he's regained consciousness now."

He sat up, how had he been found out? He spotted Samus in her battle armor, trying to figure out what the spines on her left arm were for. Was she an alien too? Actually, he mistook her for a him, that suit disguised her gender well. Then again, the rest of the Spartans were under that impression too.

"Good to see it. Your helmet is on the floor next to you. Please get up, I'd like to put her where you are currently sitting." His helper moved forwards, and he could make out the her he was referencing, leaned against the stranger's left shoulder. A Spartan, he recognized that particular suit, burned with plasma the way it was. It was Linda, Spartan 058. He quickly got off the bed, scooping his helmet up in one fluid motion.

Samus placed Linda on the bed. "I'm sorry." The AI called out, "I do not possess the current power to safely remove her armor. Bits have fused with her skin. It would not be safe. However, I _can _remotely strengthen her vitals until we reach a medical facility that can repair her injuries."

"Then do it."

"As you say."

Samus turned to face John. He looked at the fallen Spartan for a minute. She sensed concern, blue eyes flashing green for a brief moment. She nodded at him, "She'll be fine, I think. How are you?"

"Where am I?" He didn't bother answering her question. He was fine, what he really wanted to ask was how she knew he was worried.

Samus sat down in her chair at the command console, "Adam, if those aliens get near, let me know" A signal of a scanning probe had flashed across her visor a moment before. "In space, orbiting a planet that's being," she searched for the right word, "melted, I suppose, you were floating in space, I rescued you from the rubble. You were the only one alive out there, apart from her." She spun the chair around to face her guest and relaxed her free arm over the armrest. She wasn't worried, she knew this person had no weapons.

The Master Chief looked down at his boots, had his men been on the surface when glassing had started? He knew what Samus was trying to say. Most likely that they were, even if they had escaped, they were dead. There were no two ways about that.

Samus sensed his worry, Choujin enhanced blood turning her blue eyes green. She had Adam send a message to the other ship, telling them to be quiet, for the moment. They got the message.

"I have a few questions for you. Just what are those aliens? What is going on here? And that should cover it for the moment."

"The aliens are called Covenant, for as much as we can tell. They say that the destruction of our race is the will of their gods, so they go around glassing our colonies, they're nearly at Earth." He was resigned, as soon has he could, he'd launch a string of inquires at Samus, until then, best answer as honestly as he could. This news wasn't exactly secret, the public had learned this almost as soon as the war couldn't be hidden from them anymore. So why didn't this person know? It had almost been thirty years.

"Okay." Samus took all this news peaceably, as much as she could, "Alright, anything that might be in here that would give them the location of Earth? And have any place in mind you want to go?"

The Master Chief wondered slightly, Cortana was being oddly quiet, "No, nothing," he paused. His mission was to get a Covenant ship for Earth, but was his mission compromised now, with the colony Reach destroyed? Could it help them in time to win the war? He needed an update, but...where? Surely not Earth, the Covenant would follow them there. He wasn't sure, he just wasn't sure anymore, "I need to go to one of the remaining colonies."

Samus nodded, this just didn't sound right, if this had been going on for any amount of time, why wasn't she aware of this race? To her knowledge there were human colonies far away from Earth, with a technology about equivalent to the kind she had seen with the Covenant, maybe just a little less so. Dammit, this was confusing. Best to play along for now.

"So who are you?"

Cortana was quiet, too quiet. However, she was processing, sifting through information, trying to understand what was on that Pelican, and who this person was. Whatever she wanted to know, the computer of Samus's ship locked out any helpful information, save for the Pelicans systems, she quickly used the cameras on the ship and saw Spartans.

"Master Chief." He was careful, and avoided giving her his Spartan number, one hundred seventeen.

"I get called Hunter. Nice to meet you" She turned in her seat to face the console, and typed in a few commands. She recognized this tactic, keep one's identity hidden, that just sounded like a rank in the military to her. She had replied in kind, giving him the nickname she had been given after years of being a famous bounty hunter.


	3. Chapter 1 Of Beginnings 3

In the Pelican, they could hear the whole conversation. Although this would normally be too friendly and trusting for them, their lives were, to their unease, held in this stranger's hands. Besides, this hunter didn't seem too dangerous, but that tended to be the most deadly of assumptions. 

He didn't know how to go about this Hunter. The Master Chief didn't know if he was part of the military, and what rank. No orders either. No insignia, if it was a civilian it was odd that he had this ship, and an AI, that was military only. Then again, was this Hunter even human? Best to find out, and now was a better time then any to question the Hunter. "I have some questions for you."

"Ask away. Adam, plot a course for the nearest human colony."

"Are you a part of the military?"

Samus took her time before answering, "No, bounty hunter."

John paused for a moment, this changed things a lot, he didn't know of any legal bounty hunter organizations, caution built up inside of him, "Are you human?"

Samus refrained from laughing, shoved a thought of altered DNA out of her mind, "I suppose you could say that." She pressed one key, best play it low for now.

In his helmet a blue light winked, blue team's signal. What the? Suddenly the COM in his HUD opened. "Master Chief sir, we're glad you're alright, sir." He recognized that voice, it was Spartan 087, Kelly.

He looked around suddenly, was there more to this ship then this one room? A line appeared in Samus's helmet, **There's a COM line between the drop ship and Master Chief.**

"Computer, turn us to face the other ship."

Samus's ship turned around, view screen pointed at the Pelican, she waved Master Chief forwards. The Spartans inside flicked two of their fingers over their visors where their mouths would be, their gesture for a smile, He repeated the process to them. He was glad they were alive.

Course calculated, there's something strange. There are two human colonies in the same system, Samus. Take a look. Specs flew across the green visor, Samus viewed all of them. Funny, the new colony was human, but...the technology, was the same as these new people, and, this was confusing. She knew where she would have to go after dropping these strangers off.

«Adam, take us to the new colony.» She spoke under her breath in a foreign language. The Master Chief turned to look at her, his sound receivers caught her statement, but he didn't understand it. "Got a colony. But it goes towards Earth, problems?"

"Its against the Cole protocol, the Covenant will follow us and be brought closer to Earth. Its treason."

Samus avoided directly laughing at him, "Adam, we'll continue with the course, sub space, and cover our tracks." She turned her seat around and typed in a few commands before pressing a button. There was a hum as the ships were brought abreast of the other, and a micro thin green barrier sprung around them. A few alien ships spotted them, and charged their pulse lasers. "You'll find that they can't track us by these means, no matter how hard they try. Oh, brace yourselves." Samus sat calmly down in her seat. Master Chief, confused, stood against the wall. In the Pelican ship, the Spartans buckled themselves into the seats.

The ships jumped down explosively into subspace, the temporal gateway closing immediately behind them. The space around them turned bright, dots of dark blurred into lines as they moved faster then light. It was as if space itself was inverted. Everyone was jolted backwards, the Spartans standing in the Pelican falling against the back wall. Samus was pressed into the back of her chair and Master Chief was pressed further back into the wall. There were a few screeches as five creatures slammed against the wall.

Samus stood up and moved quickly over to them.

"What happened out there, sir?"

"James was sent flying off when we landed, Linda was shot with a plasma beam when we were about to leave, the _Pillar of Autumn _was going to pick me and some Marines up, however, some Covenant destroyers blew it up, and the Pelican I was on was destroyed by Covenant troops in the station."

"We're glad you're alright, sir. What about Linda?"

He smiled briefly, he was glad they made it as well. He ignored the question, he knew Kelly was just asking from the tone of her voice. He figured that they had heard and wanted confirmation, all he did was wink an acknowledgement light in the other Spartan's helmet. That was enough. Then John turned his mind back to the task at hand. Had this Hunter helped his men? Either way he still had to find out more.

"ETA one hour, give or take a few..." She muttered that foreign curse once again.

"What is it?"

"Space Pirates." She sensed confusion coming from him, "Not familiar with them? They attack colonies in guerilla like moves, not many survive to become familiar with them. Adam, get us to that colony faster."

"As you say." Don't attack recklessly, Lady.

What if Ridley's on board? I have to kill him. Besides, that colony doesn't stand a chance.

There's a second colony in the system, with the technology to delay the pirates. I will hurry however.

The two ships explosively jumped faster, if that was possible. Now traveling four times the speed of light, their ETA was cut exponentially. "ETA ten minutes. Hey over there, how's that ship holding out?"

"Fine, there are a few pings though, these weren't designed for travel like this."

'True, but, still, the barrier should hold. Then again, this is a lot larger then it was designed for,' Samus thought to herself before speaking aloud, "Alright, let me know if it gets dangerous. I'll slow down." She sighed, and waited for the allotted ten minutes to pass. The Master Chief held a low-key conversation with the AI Cortana about their current situation, along with the rest of his team. The computer noticed, logged it, but didn't mention it, it was not important in his, and most likely Samus's, eyes.

"Arriving at destination, please brace yourselves." Samus turned her seat around and locked it in place. Master Chief, confused remained standing where he was, barely able to stand fully in the craft. In the Pelican, everyone had remained where they were, so they stayed there. "Ten seconds...five, four three, two, one."

The ships stopped as explosively as they had started. Space returned to its normal inky blackness splattered with white stars. The micro thin barrier phased out. The Spartans aboard the Pelican were jolted forwards, one being forced out of her seat, but stopped before ramming into anything. Master Chief, however, flew forwards, and the Hunter Class gun ship was not nearly as roomy as the Pelican drop-ship. He crashed back first into the console. A yellow liquid like barrier formed around his armor, absorbing most of the impact energy, minimizing the damage to both himself and the ship. He stood up and shook his head slightly, hearing Cortana's complaints in his head.

The two ships floated in orbit around the colony. In a few moments a connection was opened with Samus's ship and the Pelican. "UNSC Pelican-class ship and accompaniment; identify yourselves."

"SPARTAN-117 Master Chief and the rest of the Spartans here."

Down at ground control the Marines shivered. The Spartans were a nearly mythological military unit. The communications officer spoke into the microphone again.

"What do you want, Master Chief sir?"

**LAND** were the letters that appeared on the view-screen. "We'd like to land."

A signal was sent through on the planet's surface, "Alright, sir, but how will the Pelican land?"

The Master Chief exchanged a glance with Samus, hard to do with all those reflective visors, and nodded, "We'll manage."

"Alright, sir. Beta landing only, sir." The line dropped.

"Beta landing, that's high security. What, don't they believe you?" Cortana sounded nothing short of annoyed.

Master Chief tapped the side of his helmet slightly, to cue Cortana into being silent. She got the hint. "Just give Hunter the coordinates for the landing."

Cortana gave an electronic sigh, giving the necessary data to the other AI. A red blip appeared on the view of the planet. The micro thin barrier appeared once more around the two ships. The hunter-class ship's thrusters fired, bringing both ships in at a decent angle of descent. When they broke through, and when it was safe, the barrier disappeared.

Both ships landed, the Pelican with a bigger thump then the smaller ship. Spartans moved out of the ship, over the suggested operational load, but it was all of them. Wait, no, five of them were missing. The hatch slid open, the Master Chief jumped out, Samus following suit a moment later. Master Chief started to slip against the slick surface of the ship, but Samus caught his elbow, metal boots cleanly adhered to the metallic hull. She let him fall after a moment, but now he wasn't caught so un-aware.

"Might want to be more careful. Footing's not that great." She jumped down, landing lightly a meter away.

Master Chief nodded and walked over to the rest of his Spartans, glad to see the remaining nineteen left. They snapped to attention.

"At ease. Any damages on Reach?"

"Four died on landing, one died in combat, several are wounded, and we all have broken bones, sir." A male answered under his insignia was SPARTAN-104, Master Chief recognized him as Frederic, the one he had put in charge of the ground op. The platform they were on shuddered and moved below the ground. The hole closed after everything was clear. Samus stiffened and looked up, then around at the make-shift lift. What in the hells was going on? After a few minutes the platform shuddered to a stop, a doorway opened, a few armed figures silhouetted into the door frame. Lights flickered on, giving a bare minimum lighting to those inside. Several weapons trained on Samus.

"Master Chief sir, its good to see you, sir. We thought for a moment that you were Covenant that had stolen a Pelican when you appeared on our sensors, sir." One of the marines walked over to the Spartans vaguely addressing them all, not being able to tell who from who in the dim light and the identical sets of MJOLNIR armoring. To help him, the Master Chief walked out in front of his squad. Now able to tell who was SPARTAN-117, the marine looked directly at him.

Samus looked at John as well, he looked back over at her as the marines responded to the minor motion by tightening their grip on their guns, "Easy now, marines, he's helped us escape the Covenant on Reach."

One of the marines made a jest, "So even Spartans have to run?"

Master Chief shifted, holding his anger inside, not showing it. Spartans were elite and powerful yes, but not unstoppable, to his own misfortune. Add to the five lost on the ground op the one he had lost, that made six Spartan losses, more then double over all the years of battle. But the rest of his squad recognized the gesture. "It was that or get glassed along with the colony. And we have a favor to return to the Covenant." His tone was clipped.

The very same marine paled, "So, Reach fell, sir?"

"They outnumbered us three to one. I need contact to an Admiral, on the double."

"Sir, yes, sir!" The lead marine waved Master Chief and the other Spartans through. Samus paused before deciding to follow.

"Now you just stay there, or we'll shoot."

"Its alright, he can come with us." Samus decided that the "he" in question was herself. Ancients knew how often she was mistaken for a male.

"Is he even human, sir?"

"As much as some of us here." Was her rather clipped reply before the Master Chief could respond. She quickly jogged to catch up with the Spartans, although it caused some forms of ease among the enlisted, she kept getting side-long glances.

This caused the augmented humans to wonder, especially the Master Chief. Did this mean the Hunter knew of their past, or at least their genetic enhancements? If so, was he the same way? It would make sense, that armor looked as heavy as their own.

* * *

Just some FYI's. I read the Metroid E-manga, wherein the Chozo were referred to as Choujin, therefore, I refer to Chozo as Choujin, because I heard that the game translators screwed up, and they are supposed to be Choujin, not Chozo. Mhm, I've always taken some liberties with what information I had on the Choujin and Samus, as it was fairly limited and open for exploitation. Again, let me know if I severely screwed up. Even on the Halo thing, although I'm only using what I know. 


	4. Chapter 2 Of Shortness

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha (I _am_ a genius). Chapter Two. It's quite a bit shorter (a third the length), but _only_ because I really thought that it shouldn't be jammed together with the next chapter.

* * *

**0919 Hours, August 30, 2552 (Military Calendar)**

**Digota Star System, Digota 4, inside underground complex**

They were led through a series of consecutive tunnels, a winding maze that led deeper into the planet. Although it wouldn't help if the Covenant found the research colony and decided to glass it. Eventually they came into a command room of sorts. There were consoles all over the room. Other officers were scattered about, some manning two or three consoles.

"Get me in touch with Admiral McCullough."

"Aye aye." One of the crewmen called.

The Master Chief thought; McCullough was the next best thing to Keyes or doctor Halsey, or now that he thought about it Mendez. He shrugged the train of thought off, a quick trip off in his memories could be dangerous. No, the admiral was quite possibly the closest person in contact with the ONI, and would with all possibility know exactly what his original mission was.

In minutes the admiral walked into the room, "What the hell is it, Marine? You'd better have a damn good reason for this." He appeared fatigued, exhausted, and worried. Then he noticed the Spartans.

"Sir! Someone here wants to talk to you, sir!" The marine half shouted at the admiral and moved out of the way of the Chief, although it really wasn't necessary, he was over seven feet in height. The fact that the admiral had missed him and the Spartans spoke volumes on how fatigued and worried the admiral was. Master Chief moved to announce his presence. The Admiral didn't do so much as blink. Most navy officers would stare for a moment before he spoke, like he was an alien as well. Then again nearly seven feet and a half ton of Spartan in his armor and he didn't look fairly normal.

"Ah, SPARTAN 117, what is it?" He paused and added an afterthought, "Oh, and its good to see you, I thought you had been killed along with everyone else on Reach."

"Sir." Master Chief was about to salute when a quick quip from the admiral stopped him, "Our original mission was compromised, sir."

"Original...?" The McCullough stopped, "Oh right. How?"

"Our ship was destroyed, sir, its just me the other Spartans and Cortana."

"So how'd you get where you are?" His eyebrows furrowed as something crossed his mind, "And how so fast? Reach is quite a way, it would take a day to get here in Slip-stream. And what about the Cole protocol, soldier?" He didn't really notice Samus, hidden behind all the Spartans as she was.

Samus, who had been quietly standing in the corner, having Adam transfer data to her head's up display via her scanning visor and taking in information about this installation, and the impending Space Pirate attack finally muttered something as she read the types of pirates she would likely be up against. Everyone looked at her, and the Spartans moved so that the Admiral could see her. She quickly recovered from her slip-up and looked at the man.

"Them surviving and getting here is my fault. Though, those aliens would have to be far more technologically advanced then what I assume them to be from a scan on their ship to follow a closed warp." She shifted a fraction of an inch, as sign of nervousness, "And as much as I'd like to talk to you about universal oddities, I can't."

The admiral just sized up Samus, in that suit she, whom he too assumed to be a he, was nearly was tall as some of the Spartans and just as alien looking. He locked her in a scrutinizing glance, "And why is that?"

Samus just stood up straighter under the glance, showing off her full armored height of six foot three inches in the armor, most likely the reason why she was thought to be a guy, she was just too tall to be female in most people's opinions. "Because, I'm afraid to say, this particular colony is about to come under attack, and it won't be so pleasant as having the planet turned into glass. An race of people, Space Pirates, happen to be coming, and they...go around making sure personally that everyone is dead before leaving and taking anything of technological value."

"So what will you do?"

"Why, they especially invited me over for a meal, and it would be quite rude to decline, besides, they don't take no as an answer." She shifted her right arm, which was covered by the barrel of her gun, conduits glowing a foreboding red. She got a look of distrust, "If you don't trust me, which I doubt you do, I can put you in touch with some other admiral who knows me, knows what I'm talking about, and take someone you trust along with me."

The admiral considered, he didn't know who this person was talking about, but, then a report came into the colony. "Sir, there's a ship coming in from Slip-space, faster then the Covenant, and, sir, it's heading right for us. It's not of known Covenant make."

That changed everything, "Alright, Master Chief, go with him. But I want to talk to that admiral."

Samus just lifted up her left arm, pressed a button at the base of the gun, it collapsed and shrunk, revealing the tips of her fingers. She faced her left hand up, a panel popped open on her forearm at a mental will, she pulled out a flat disk. "Adam, get me in touch with the Federation colony's admiral, now," Wait, "Yes, my holo projector, _if _you don't mind."

She put the disk on the ground, it glowed yellow, a hologram popped out of it a moment later. It was in the form of a human, life-size too. It was a man that was the same age as McCullough, not much else could be seen, the hologram was pure blue energy.

"Aran, thank god." He looked purely relieved to see Samus. "We got a signal in sub space that those Pirate bastards are coming."

"Yes, I know. Look around you, admiral." She stood even straighter talking to this admiral, the Master Chief didn't fail to notice. Talking to McCullough she almost appeared relaxed, now she looked different.

The admiral did so, "What the hell is going on, Aran?"

"I can't explain now, I don't even understand it, Admiral O'Neal. Just look at the man over there," Samus pointed to the other Admiral, "and have a nice conversation. Oh, could you send a ship over here to hold off their fighter? It might take me a while to get in."

The Master Chief hoped that Samus wasn't insinuating that he would hold her back.

"Is it that bad?"

"Researcher class, heavily guarded. Oh, Master Chief, I'd suggest that you get a weapon that can at least pierce armor."

He nodded, got a marine to hand over his personal favorite, an MA5B assault rifle. Its hardened shells could pierce tank armoring, in combat he found it somewhat effective against the new Elite armoring, this should work. He took two handfuls of extra round clips; this was probably not going to be easy.

'Projectiles...' Samus thought watching the Master Chief, 'Hm, that'll work, just barely, but it will. At the least it'll be a distraction.' When he was ready she just left, leaving him to follow. She wasn't much up for teamwork, preferring to work alone most of the time, but now she needed at least one other person to back her up. These ships were bound to have lots of Elite Pirates, and maybe Phazon Elites too.

Her eyes glinted, nearly smiling at the thought, those special Elite Pirates needed massive amounts of a cancerous substance, just what she had been looking for, for a very long time. She'd have to find the blue Phazon, it would be a tremendous asset, no ands ifs or buts about it.

The Master Chief followed, irritated about being left behind like that, but saying nothing. When they came to the ship, the hole in the ground opened. Samus had the computer open the hatch. She motioned for her teammate to climb in. He did so, this time being careful of the ship's surface and increased the traction on the soles of his boots. Samus climbed in, jumped in, used one of her suits abilities to extend her flight time so she landed directly in her seat. John just stood.

"Adam, we've got a Space Pirate party to attend, can you get us there on time?"

"Certainly." The ship started up, five yellow thruster flames boosting the ship off the planets surface and to the ship of pirates. Samus considered their options. The Space Pirates had artificial gravity, that was true, but to get in one often had to go through a system of security shutdowns EVA. Her suit would automatically adhere her to the ship's hull, but the Master Chief, he'd float off into the vacuum. Not to mention he could only last two hours after leaving the ship. She hoped it wouldn't take more then two hours to go in and get back out, if it did, there was no hope. She drew a long breath, this would slow her down considerably, not to mention she had to make sure he made it out alive.

She turned the seat around to face the Master Chief, "Adam, transfer all pertinent data we have to Cortana." She wanted to see what those two would make of this situation.

"Processing, ETA five minutes."

Cortana got the data and read through it and less then a second. "Here Master Chief, it appears that you'll have some difficulty getting into the vessel." The data was broadcast directly into his brain. He knew now what that sigh was for. How to get him in was now their issue, not going in wasn't an option, Admiral McCullough would be waiting for him to return with recordings.

"Have any ideas?" He looked at Samus with the inquiry.

"If it weren't for all that security that the pirates have it wouldn't be a problem. Otherwise I could have the ship drop you off right out the door and I could bring you in. But I can't bring you in all the way _and_ deactivate security to get through, _and_ make it discreet all at the same time. It will just go right back up until I destroy the core."

"Someone say security?" Cortana's voice echoed through John's helmet to speak to Samus. "If I know the way their systems work, I can get in."

"Hack into their mainframe?"

"Of course, its what I'm good at."

"Its what I do, but the effects are at best temporary. You have to scan certain areas with a special data string to bring down the defenses, but it always goes back up."

"Give me the data string, and I'll see what I can do."

Samus paused, weighed her options briefly, "Adam, give her the data string."

"ETA four minutes twenty seconds."

Cortana got the string in a cycle, managed to wrap herself around how utterly complex it was, and processed an electronic smug nod three cycles later. This, not only would help complete this mission, but give her a more complex and discreet hacking ability. It would come in handy some time, she knew that at the very least. "Alright. I've got it, I'll insert the code at the ready."

"Good." Samus eased back in her chair. The rest of the four minutes that she dared to spend on this task, was spent on explaining and briefing the Master Chief on the Space pirates, so he wouldn't be caught by surprise.

"As you might know, I don't know what information the computer gave you and Cortana, but the Space Pirates don't have a viable atmosphere in their ships for us, or them, their suits rearrange the molecules in the air so they can breath. My suit can do the same, but yours can't, so our time limit is two hours to get in and out. You might want to make sure none of the air gets in, its pure poison to humans. Their suits get sub commands from their computer for the suits to function like that. Sort of like a heart beat for a person, you can't stop it and do it with your conscious no matter how much you want to. So in essence, destroy the ship and they won't function and they'll die in a few minutes. It's the easiest way to kill a planetary invasion. The conceding explosion in the ship will kill everyone aboard, it's not something you want to stick around for."

"Basically," Cortana said, "Get in, set the computer for a self-destruct, get out."

"Correct, but that can only be done from within the ship by destroying the AI, after that the ship blows up in a few minutes. You don't want to be around for the explosion. And getting out is the easy part."

The Master Chief soaked in all of this new information, most likely they would have to fight their way in, and out. When getting out they would only have a small gap of time. So how would getting out be the easy part? The Space Pirates would be dead by then, or at least most of them. That's how. They'd be on a ship with narrow corridors, most likely low gravity, and not a lot of information. Not exactly his ideal conditions, but it would have to do. Spartans either adapted in battle or they didn't and died, it was that simple. They'd been doing that since day one.

"They'll be out in five seconds." The shipboard AI called out. "Five, four, three," Space started to distort, "Two" The distortion became more defined, a ghastly shimmer, "One." With a small shockwave the ship was out, "They're here."

Samus gave the ship a few commands. The ship's thrusters performed small, elegant bursts that evaded the scanners.


	5. Chapter 3 Of Pirates

**IMPORTANT, READ THIS:**

Do not hesitate to tell me any grammatical errors or anything else I've messed up. I'm glad to hear what I've done wrong, but I have one condition; tell me what exactly it is, and maybe some advice on how to fix it. If my writing systems just confuses the hell out of you, lemme know and tell me why, and maybe how I can fix it. I'm not perfect, hell I'm not even outta highschool yet. So don't expect me to understand what you mean, treat me like an A class moron and explain why its wrong and how to fix it. Just friendly advice works too.

Now, time for me to shut up and get on with the story!

* * *

**0950 Hours, August 30, 2552 (Military Calendar)**

**Digota Star System, Near Digota 5, Hunter-Class Gunner Ship docked on the outside of a Space Pirate Research Ship**

The hatch slid down once the barrier formed to prevent explosive decompression inside the ship. Samus motioned the Master Chief to wait, and climbed cautiously out, the hatch staying below. Her boots stuck to the surface of the ship, she reached her useful hand down, a make-shift COM line broke through. It cycled through one person's helmet through the ship and into the other's. The ship added the traditional distortion common to Samus's suit speech.

"One hundred twenty minutes, come on."

The Master Chief moved over and stood on the hatch, allowing himself to be pulled easily out of the ship. It just didn't settle right with him, how'd he be getting in, and out. He made sure his ammo clips were secured and tightened his hold on his gun. He hated fighting in space. "Cortana, we're coming to the first block, mind opening it?"

"With pleasure." She hacked into the mainframe, found the security outlet they were near, and had it open. Samus walked through, Cortana instantly left and went to the next one. The Master Chief flexed his fingers, legs dangling in the vacuum. He really hated going in zero gravity conditions. They moved soundlessly through the security, not even the ship AI noticed them, then again, entrance protocol didn't require it to, but after years of Samus sneaking in like this; one might think that they'd change.

The door into an airlock opened and they moved in. The door closed. Samus pressed a green button, then pulled the Master Chief down towards the ground. "Try and make sure you're in a standing position."

He moved so he was standing up relative to the floor, as the artificial gravity kicked in as the air cycled he floated gently on the floor. He felt slightly better about the situation, but he preferred feeling solid ground under his feet. At least now he would be able to walk through and aim properly.

With a jab of pain and the feeling of ice being put on his brain he felt Cortana return. "Alright, we're in. I couldn't locate their AI core though, lockdown was to much to risk it." She said through the line.

"That's alright, I know where it is. Let's get moving, time's running." Red blips appeared on the Master Chief's long range radar, six of them.

"Alert: Contacts, lots of them."

"Not surprising," was John's dry reply.

Samus deliberated, normally she'd just sneak in, take a look and then go all out. But now she had a teammate, worse, his armor wouldn't take too many shots before he'd be killed, and that weapon didn't look like it could do a lot of damage on the pirates, especially if they were elites, but no, those weren't likely to be so close to the airlock. The special forces would be nearer the core of the ship, a last and extremely potent defense against invaders. A plan started to formulate in her mind.

"So, any plans?"

Samus decided to brief him on her quickly devised plan, "All right, I'm going to sneak in there and hide, and charge my beam. Then I'll let you know if it's safe for you to come out."

"And if it is?"

"You go out, try and kill them, hopefully they'll be distracted enough so I can finish them off without them dodging. Your shields can take a beating so you should be fine for a few minutes." She punched another button, years of experience fighting the Space Pirates telling her which one to press. The doors cycled open.

The Master Chief felt frustrated. Here this person was treating him like he was weak, which he wasn't. Then again, that arm cannon of his looked like it could do some damage. He knew nothing about these pirates. Reason took over his mind and cleared out his emotions, yes, it was a lot safer to play it safe, until he got used to the enemy. It would sure beat having to tackle them by himself.

Samus had left the airlock already and was into the room, he tracked her movement on his motion detector, which painted her as a yellow dot. Samus hid behind some cover, and flicked something on the side of her helmet. On her HUD the plus sign in the lower left corner moved the little boxes around, the visor changed modes; a transparent rectangle was projected onto the display, following the motion of her eyes.

She turned, peeked around the corner, and immediately flattened herself back in her hiding spot. That had been too close, fortunately she hadn't been spotted. She reviewed the data caught on the visor. She tightened her right hand into a fist, the conduits shimmered, indigo energy pulsating in a large charge around it that would inflict more then hellish damage on anything it hit. The small addition symbol shifted, back to the way it had been before.

"All right, it's safe, just a few norms." She whispered into her microphone, the Master Chief got the message. The Spartan wasted no time readying his assault rifle and snuck to the door, watched his motion detector, and crept into the shadows. He paused momentarily and ducked over to a wall nearly opposite of Samus, so she'd have clear shots all around. The pirates barely paid heed to the blur of green in the shadows, nor the overwhelming energy coming from Samus's position. Which simply made no sense to Samus, _at all_.

The Master Chief readied his weapon, took cover in more limp shadows and fired a controlled burst of the hardened bullets at the nearest pirate. One pierced the armor, pinched the skin, but it hit something vital in the suit because it dropped. Perhaps it was the poisonous atmosphere they surrounded themselves in. That got their attention, and his cover was lost. The five remaining pirates turned to face the Petty Officer's position, readied their guns to fire, and shot at him, so even if he dodged, he'd be hit. They did it correctly, he jumped to the side to avoid most of the blasts, but got hit fully with one. It hurt and he was slammed into a wall, but his shields held, the blue bar at the top of his HUD flickered down more then halfway.

Samus waited a moment and turned around the corner. Good, a few of them were clustered so that she could wipe two of them out at the same time. Aware she had a few precious moments to fire, and wouldn't be able to charge it again for a while; she aimed, a semi-transparent blue circle landing where she needed to fire. The energy released itself with a silenced _wham_, and Samus had the distinct feeling of the skin on her hand being overwhelmed with heat even under the extra thick armor for the hand contained in the gun. No doubt if she didn't form the fist, those fingers would be fried. The conduits were most heated in the first few milliseconds after firing a charged blast, instead of while charging. She readied herself to shoot again.

The shot flew too quickly for the pirates to counter. The triangular three beams struck them, and passed through their torsos, scorching the wall behind them. Three remained, confused, but recognized Samus. A feeling relative to fear passed through their minds, but they couldn't allow the Hunter, as they aptly called her, further into the ship.

There was simply too much at stake for the Hunter to take yet _another _of their heavily guarded research ships, a experimental lab in space with enough firepower to destroy a small planet.

Of course, Samus didn't particularly care about how many of their ships she had destroyed. Hell, she enjoyed it herself, feeling satisfied each time she knew it had blown up. Still, they were now a considerably larger threat as they trigged their alarm systems to ring in the call. Now everyone would be alerted to the intruders' presence, and everyone would want a chance to kill the Hunter and her cohort.

She fired pulses of the heated electrical energy at one of the pirates, and fired a few more blasts rapidly. The pulses melted through her opponent's armor, and exited through the other side. Master Chief had made quick work of another with his gun. Thanks to their combined force the remaining one didn't even last a second.

Samus walked over to the Master Chief. He looked up at his shield charge in the upper right, the bar had recovered in recharge cycle. She nodded inside her helmet, forcing it to stay still. "Good."

The Master Chief took it that the Hunter approved, and had to admit that he was pretty good as well, that arm cannon was extremely useful.

She then walked over to another door. She willed her gun to change back to her traditional power beam. Due to a parasite, her suit had been fused with her body, so she couldn't take it off, and she was practically a cyborg. But this fusion had its uses, now her suit responded to her mere thought, she didn't have to manually click the visor or gun into their different modes anymore, and they both could hold more modes because of it.

She flexed her fingers, and balled them into a fist. She stared at the door now facing them. She raised her gun and fired a miniature shot. The energy lock surrounding the door broke down; the sectional door opened a second later.

Samus strode through, peered about, and waved the Master Chief through. It was an empty elevator shaft, which was surprisingly primitive given the Space Pirates' technology. Samus accessed control, by shifting her visor back to the rectangle. A panel nearby was overlaid with a green shade, she focused on it and the object was scanned.

Then Samus quickly went back to her combat visor. It was difficult to fight in scanning mode. The elevator rumbled to life, a large gear to the side propelling it slowly downwards, deeper into the alien vessel. The platform they stood on shuddered to stop.

They faced another door; Samus locked a curious glance on it. It glowed red, she didn't know if she could open it. Her weapon was a combination of four different beam types. So would it allow them passage? She leveled her gun and fired; the shielding in front of the door fizzled and disappeared, moments later it opened.

Waiting at the door to greet them was another pirate, and three others behind it. These had varying colors under their black armor. Red, blue, and purple.


	6. Chapter 3 Of Pirates 2

Samus shifted her gun, three triangular pieces came out like spokes from the muzzle of the cannon. A missile launched from the device. The air around and in its wake was chilled way below freezing and hit the pirate in blue. The pirate was instantly annihilated from the weapon's destructive force. 

The Master Chief fired a well-aimed trio of bullets at the one with the red. It fell simultaneously with the one Samus took out. He aimed at the third pirate, it took six shots to take this one down. Samus's gun returned to normal as she jumped to the side to avoid a blast aimed at her. The electrical pulse from her gun hit simultaneously with three bullets and the pirate went down. Samus walked into the door frame, stared up at the radar in the upper left corner, there was a contact behind her, the Master Chief, but nothing else for the next twenty yard sprint to the next door.

They continued down through the ship for the next half hour. In laboratory like rooms that were usually empty Samus would halt their progress and scan the room for data. John grew impatient with this process, but decided it was best not to ask. In fact, Samus had been on a vessel like this once before, only smaller, and knew what it had to entail. In the fifth room Samus was rewarded with the time consuming process.

Yes, those pirate fools, they were making another one, an Omega Pirate. It was still being engineered, but she located the sheer massive amounts of Phazon they still had to infuse with the brute. Well too bad for the Pirates, she wanted, no needed, all that Phazon. She was nearly willing to take any chance to get it.

In the same room she quickly located a map of the large craft. She waved the Master Chief over and told him what it was. Cortana entered the security system like a lightning strike and copied the data to her systems. This would come in handy. Samus stored the data into her suit's systems, a new box being projected on the upper right corner of her HUD, showing a piece of the map, in 3D, with her as an arrow, the map adjusted as she turned and moved, so her arrow was always in the center of the box.

Now with lots of security information, and a map they proceeded through the vessel with much less mishap. Just as they came across the second to last room before the core, Samus stopped. The threat indicator on the left side of her display had jumped up a bit, nearly half way. On a ship like this that sudden jump only meant one thing, Phazon.

She waved him to the side room and opened the seal on the door. The two walked through the small corridor.

"Mind telling me what we're doing? Cortana says the core is the other way, and that's the only way."

"I know. Look, when we get in, duck behind something in the room, it should protect you."

She opened the door, leaving the Master Chief confused, but he looked around and ducked behind a crate immediately. Samus noticed several large pods in the room, holding massive brute like pirates. She muttered something that sounded like Elites and a quick scan confirmed this. She also muttered something about new weapons. Samus had Adam send the file to Cortana for the Master Chief's review. In the center of the room was her goal. Now if only she could get that, and leave those pirates be, they were annoyances, and powerful ones at that.

In the center of the room was a large cylinder filled with condensed and super packed blue material. It glowed ominously. Samus walked over to it, the cylinder bulged out at the sides. She jumped, spun, and kicked the barrier in its weak point with the full weight of half a ton of pressure at a high velocity. It cracked, the crack quickly spread under the weight of the material it contained.

All of the material landed on the floor, getting dangerously close to the Chief. This changed suddenly as Samus landed in the blue matter. It quickly drew back and surrounded her. The Master Chief stiffened, something about the substance had screwed around with his systems. The shields failed on him and dissipated, and then slowly recharged, too slow. He was about to blow his cover when the substance was seemingly absorbed into her suit.

He stared briefly at her suit, it was now black, the visor had changed to orange and became less transparent, distorting her face even more, although the eyes the suit barely showed gave him no really helpful hint to gender, not that it mattered to him. The suit was almost completely black. The red section above her shoulder and the skin-like covering over most of the suit was black, the metal was black too. The only thing that wasn't black was the visor. He could spot the glow of red energy below the surface of the suit. There was a thin mist that covered the suit and extended out two centimeters, it didn't obscure the suit, actually, it just looked like static.

She nodded inside her helmet, good. A quick scan of her bio systems and suit systems, everything was in the green. Now her suit's shields were twice as tough, not to mention she was fonder of the color. Although with the fusion, her body burned a little all over. That would have to be looked into.

She looked back at the pods holding the Elites, somehow breaking the pod had killed power to the systems. That meant exactly one of two things: the ogre like creatures inside were either dead, or the two intruders were about to get a nasty surprise. Only time would tell. Samus, however, didn't feel like hanging around to find out.

She waved her hand and they left the room in less then a second. Good thing too, the Master Chief had barely been able to get out before the door, much too small for the elites, locked behind them and there were shuffling noises in the room. The two continued on the route they had been on before.

They walked into the control room, it was circular with a rough circular platform around it. In the middle was a small column. This was good, no threats unlike the last time Samus had been on a ship like this. Though that meant their technology was vastly improved. She walked over the edge, conscious of the lack of railing and peered over. There it was. She looked back at the Master Chief.

"Thanks. I don't know why there were so few pirates to face." John simply was confounded, they had faced over two hundred Space Pirates and Power Troopers, if _that_ was what he called a few, he hated to know what a lot would be, "But I mustn't digress, they're most likely going to use their heavier troops that will last longer without the AI to make sure I die with them." This thought didn't encourage her or the Chief, she frowned inside her suit calculating something for a moment, "I need you to get back to that air lock using a different route then we used to get through. Get back to the air lock quickly, I'll give you twenty minutes. Then I blow the core."

Cortana activated the ship's map, planned an alternate route and alerted the Master Chief. John nodded, "All right." He estimated the time in his head, it had taken them nearly an hour to get down fighting all the way, and of course, the long pauses in the labs, he was on his last clip, and he was starting to feel the effects of the whittled amount of oxygen. He wouldn't last long in a fight. This route was a back way, according to Cortana it was the vent system, or something, but it was large, and he could get through it quickly. "Give me ten."

With that he left and came across a door, Cortana hacked into the systems and opened the door for him to pass through. She hand fed him the directions. Four minutes in, he was halfway back to the lift.

"Wait! Stop!" The Master Chief immediately halted, a ram passed by the opening to another maintenance shaft, energy sparked from his shield as it passed merely a centimeter from his helmet. He took a step back. A second later, it went back slowly the opposite way it had come.

"You need to turn to your right." She started to tell him, her voice echoing in his helmet and his mind.

"_Towards_ that thing?"

She processed a sense of impatience, "Yes. _Towards_ it. About ten meters into the hall will be an alcove to another door. If you wait for it to retract you should be able to make it."

John weighed the 'should' in his head and crept towards the edge, he waited for the ram to pass by, and retreat. Then he bolted, he didn't want to find out exactly how much force that thing had when it struck. He came to another energy sealed door, Cortana opened it for him. The Master Chief was getting tired of her constantly leaving and coming back, his head was starting to throb. He closed his eyes, forced the discomfort aside and continued following the AI's advice.

Samus, however, was not having such an easy time of it. She took a few steps back, and leveled her gun before firing at it's upper torso. It struck a brute in the chest, it would take many more shots to bring it down. But she couldn't focus only on that one. She had two to tango with. She grumbled as a blast of energy hit her side and she was pushed backwards slightly. The metal glowed slightly, heated, she felt the distinct feeling of fire on her side before the suit's systems cooled the metal down. That would need to be repaired. She didn't bother to check the energy bar at the top of her suit before turning to face the other pirate brute. She already knew her shield bar was at zero.

"Damn Elites," she muttered under her breath and switched her gun back to when she had killed the pirate in the blue armor. This time as the tip of the missile came to bear with the muzzle she pressed a hand onto the edge of the gun attached to her arm. The missile stopped as chilled air compressed behind it and a blue glow formed around the mouth.

When the glow was nearly as bright as the sun she let the missile go. It exploded from the muzzle and struck the Elite hard in the chest. A shock of icy air was sent back at Samus. She shivered before her suit's system's compensated for it. The Elite wailed and collapsed. Then with some of it's weight on the edge of the platform, it fell off the side.

Behind her was yet another pirate, it shot her in the back she had barely noticed it in time to avoid a painful and nearly fatal blast. It wouldn't have destroyed her suit, but most likely it would have thrown her off the edge. She whirled around, the pirate a foot from her. She took several steps backwards as the gun charged another missile shot. When she was five meters from it, the pirate slammed it's fists into the platform.

Purple energy waves burst out in a circle from the impact. They were well over three meters in height. Samus jumped and her feet glowed as they extended her jump time. The soles of her feet brushed against the bottom of the energy as it passed beneath her. She aimed at the pirate, compensated for her movement and fired.

The missile hit the pirate, it was sent back half a meter but it still stood. Samus shifted the gun back to normal and fired a shot at the pirate, almost exactly nailing the spot she had hit earlier. The pirate wailed as it fell, the thud reverberated through Samus's bones. She groaned as the white bar on the right side of her HUD dropped to 248.

She called up a timer that flew into the middle of her display, ten seconds before she should have destroyed the core. She didn't bother to wait, she was waiting in danger, and her shields and ammo weren't unlimited, the shielding was already down anyway. She charged her regular beam and waited until her suit was glowing purple before firing it down into the core. After that she fired thirty more pulses from the gun in a second.

The Master Chief made back into the air lock with ten seconds to spare. He felt the ship rumble underneath himself.

"That was ten seconds early. Is something happening down there?" Cortana wondered aloud in his helm. The Master Chief shifted, but stated put. He felt vulnerable standing here like this, doing nothing, but he had been told to stay in the airlock once he got there so they could leave immediately. It seemed wise, and this person seemed to know what he was talking about with these pirates.

In the core Samus turned and ran to follow the same route as the Master Chief. She knew the convoluted corridors well, and could traverse them quickly. She jumped into the air and curled into half her height, she was flexible indeed even with all that armor. Her shoulder pads and parts of the front and back of her armor shifted in milliseconds, forming a protective sphere a meter in diameter. Gravity beams held her curled form in place as the black orb with red plasma side panels and a seam of red energy gyrated around her.

She used the Morph Ball's increased speed, knowing that these ships were prone to sudden jumps of time until destruction, in the wrong direction. She made it to the lift in less then the time it took the Master Chief. She reversed the orb's formation, coming to stand at her full height. Feeling better, she activated the lift, waited for it to come down and impatiently waited for the clock displayed at the top of her HUD to countdown ten seconds.

The door slid open and she jumped onto the lift. She had it move up wards, ten seconds later she was up. Relieved to have encountered no more Elites and to have her favorite suit back she ran through the remaining room into the air lock. One minute to spare. She waited for the airlock to cycle, grabbed the Master Chief's wrist and high tailed it off the ship.

Samus saw hers waiting for her return, holding position just above the deck. She jumped onto the hull of her small gunner. The hunter walked up the side and the hatch opened, and she pushed the Master Chief in, he walked into the back. She jumped in, and walked to her seat. The hatch closed and her ship maneuvered away from the soon-to-be explosive wreck.

Samus slumped in her seat slightly, and flexed the fingers on her right hand, moving the joints, stretching the fingers from their fist position. She didn't saying anything about the two Elite Pirates that had attacked her while she was waiting for the ten minutes to pass near the core. But still, her fingers had probably been in better condition.

Samus finally took the time to look up at the bar displaying her shielding at the top center of her HUD, it was down half. 'Odd', she thought, 'how did the blast get through to my suit then?'

The Master Chief looked down at Linda, who had been kept in place the whole time by small gravity beams. Energy pulsated around her suit as the ship kept her alive. Samus steered the ship back to the planet as the pirate ship exploded silently behind them.


	7. Chapter 4 Of Missions

Hiya folks. No, this isn't really a new chapter. I split the last chapter up into two chapters, because I need to explain something really badly. Just now it hit me how stupid the data Cortana gave the Master Chief at the end was. So I just fixed the error to make it better.

I had someone tell me that the data at the end was inaccurate. And this is really what I need to explain, badly, it's at the end of the chapter for all those interested. Oh, to those who read the last chapter when it was merged with this chapter, just read the bolded crap at the bottom again.

And with the last chapter, John really shouldn't have been able to destroy a pirate with three bullets. Adam will explain why he was able to in a later chapter, along with a breakdown of technological levels.

* * *

**1147 Hours, August 30, 2552 (Military Calendar)**

**Digota Star System, Digota 5, Inside planet-born research facility**

Back at the base the two Admirals were having a conversation, the Marines and Spartans just standing around trying not to listen but having no other choice. The Spartans turned off their external helmet speakers and had a private conversation using their interteam COM.

"I'd like to meet you face to face, Admiral McCullough. They should return in about an hour, mind if I come over?"

"No, not at all."

In fifty minutes the Federation Admiral was there. He stood and saluted the other Admiral. All of the naval officers and marines snapped to attention, "At ease. You're all dismissed." He turned to the Spartans, "Tell Aran and that other one to come back here when they return."

The Spartans made their way back to the door outside the bay, waiting for their squad leader and the mysterious Aran to return. The Marines loitered around in the large gathering rooms, having nothing better to do. Admiral O'Neal got a lot of tactical information about the Covenant, what they did, and what their ships looked like.

"So, from what you tell me, your government is in danger of being destroyed." The Galactic Federation Admiral looked up from his data pad.

"Not only that, but the entire human race."

O'Neal shook his head, "I'm afraid that's not so, we've never heard of these attacks before, and we still have over two hundred colonies. However, I want to get to the point, why?"

"Because of the Covenant, they glass our colonies because it's the will of their gods, they're getting closer to Earth all the time, its only a matter of time before they find her."

"Half-buried, eh? We're a foot in the grave because of those Space Pirates, they want to control the galaxy from what we can surmise, and will destroy us to do it."

"That's wonderful. We were going to steal one of their ships to get their technology so we could fight back."

"So what stopped you?"

"Our strongest hold was destroyed and the ship we had for the mission was also destroyed. We still have the Spartans, but, they don't have a ship, or much of a crew, we'll need anything we can get to stop the Covenant." Admiral McCullough looked hard-pressed at the thought.

"And the pirates would adapt to these Covenant." O'Neal surmised correctly, "Or they might work together, with a temporarily common goal, but I don't know. How good are these Spartans?"

"Good, they have killed tens of thousands of Covenant, and over thirty years, that unit has lost only three members, and one too wounded to continue." 'Until today.' Was the thought that echoed in his mind, the group that had been there before didn't quite look like the twenty-six they should have been.

"I'll have Aran work with them. He doesn't hail from a world like our own, his manners are different," O'Neal chuckled for some strange reason beyond McCullough, "But he's powerful, and from what I can tell human, he's destroyed at least seven to eight Space Pirate ships on his own, fought off a planet invasion practically by himself, along with another dangerous race. He doesn't ever fail a mission he's given. So he'll help your Spartans...that is, if Aran passes."

"Passes?"

O'Neal didn't have a chance to answer for at that moment Samus and John entered. The Master Chief snapped to attention. Samus just stood straighter.

"Admirals." Her voice was respectful.

O'Neal looked at Samus, and McCullough nodded his head at the Master Chief, returning the salute, "At ease."

O'Neal sighed, "I didn't bother before, I just wanted those pirates stopped, but Aran, what the hell were you thinking?"

"Admiral?" Samus tried to sound confused, but she knew exactly what he was talking about.

"The B.S.L. Space Station orbiting SR388. You blew it, and the planet, up."

Samus steeled herself and her tone, "Admiral, with all due respect, the Federation was _breeding_ and _cloning _Metroid."

"I know that Samus."

"And let's not forget the X Parasite aboard that station and planet, and the SA-X. They wanted me to _let_ them keep them as pets. They didn't stand a chance against the X, what did they plan to accomplish with the SA-X? The fools would have been instantly infected, and then the X and SA-X would have taken their ship and invaded the galaxy unstoppably. Do you honestly think I was going to stand idly by and let that happen?

"I have one job, and one job only, that's protecting the galaxy, since no one else seems to be doing a good job of keeping it from shambles. I don't care if I have to go against the direct orders of the Emperor of the _Universe_ to do that job. Going with the _wishes_ of the Galactic Federation would have been in direct confrontation with my job of protecting the galaxy." She didn't sound grandiloquent as she said this, more like it was a sworn duty, "So what if I"

Samus was very well about to start with about how she was going the quit the Space Hunters, and how fed up with the Galactic Federation she was when Admiral O'Neal cut in, "I'm sure, Aran." He smiled at her, "Nothing's changed, you aren't after destroying the Federation, and you aren't a threat. I'm sorry about the metroid, I'll talk to the people in charge of that, and see if I can't clear your name. I've got a new contract for you, we'll pay double for the troubles given to you on your last mission."

Samus crossed her arms and leaned against the wall, "What is it?" The money, well, it was a good attempt at a bribe, but it wouldn't work if she disliked the sound of the mission. She felt more comfortable now, this was more her style, not chewing peoples' heads off.

"There's this race called the Covenant apparently. They seem as dead set about killing off all humans as the pirates are about ruling the galaxy, from the information Admiral McCullough sent me during my flight here, their technology is vastly superior then ours."

Samus scoffed, "Mind telling me something that's new? Your suits are barely better then tin cans against pirate technology." That gave Master Chief some idea of the differences between these obvious two governments, his armor was better then a tin can, about equal to Samus's, actually, just a bit worse. Though something ate at him, the off hand manner Samus was addressing the admiral and the speech, he wanted more information on this person. Plus the fact that Samus's armor was a lot better then a tin can, and the second person she had used, what did it all mean?

"That's true...But I must continue, this mission should be relatively simple and should have far less twists to it then normal." Samus had the distinct feeling O'Neal had just jinxed the mission, "You are to help the Spartans attain their original goal against these Covenant, immediately. I'd advise you take this."

Samus immediately frowned in her mind, he hadn't described the original mission. She shifted slightly, "Admiral..."

"Do you have a problem with this, Aran?"

"I don't know the original objective, Admiral."

"Simple, capture a Covenant ship for whatever purpose it's needed. And do it quickly. Do you accept this contract?"

Samus frowned and paused to think. Sure it would be for the general good of the galaxy, but she just wasn't sure. Samus wasn't ready to be friends with the Federation. She went over her options. Accepting the mission would allow her to fight against a new enemy on a mission that was described as "easy", not the most inviting circumstances. Then again, if she didn't it was possible her name wouldn't be cleared, and that meant having to fight the GF as well. True, she could handle them and the pirates, but she didn't want to. Especially, if there was another enemy. She nodded.

"Good." The admiral frowned at Samus's sigh, "Anything else?"

"I was planning on going to my home world, Admiral."

"Not possible. Besides"

Samus cut him off short knowing full well what he was about to say, "I know, Admiral." How to turn this in her favor, "But, there are several problems with doing this now. One, several of the Master Chief's men are too injured to even walk without help, it will take at least a day for them to heal enough on their own, several others are being held together by their suits, which, my scans indicates they might have a few system problems with, that will need repair. Two, we'll need a ship for this mission can't be done with just that drop-ship and my ship. It will take you at least two months to get a ship and a crew. If what I've heard is true, you don't have those months." She paused, waiting for the weight of her words to sink in.


	8. Chapter 4 Of Missions 2

A moment later there was a response, "Go on." 

"_If _you allow me to take three or four days and reach my home world, I can get a ship that can be manned by the people we'll have available, plus a few other things that would help. This would save us a lot of time, which would help the mission, Admiral." Samus stood there, observed both admirals, and knew she had won. She inwardly grinned triumphantly.

The Admirals exchanged a look, walked to the back of the room and talked for a few minutes, but the conversation was heard by both of the armored humans in the room. They came back after making a decision, "All right, Aran. But after that you're on that mission."

"Fine by me." Samus was smiling in her thoughts, her face was still barely visible so she kept that stoic, 'I want to see how well those Covenant stand up against me.'

"Permission to ask a question, sir?"

"You just did, Master Chief, but go ahead." McCullough smiled at his own joke, looking at the Master Chief.

"Who will be in tactical command, sir?"

"I think it would be best if you both were. Seeing as you might run into pirates or Covenant, it would be better if there was someone in command who knew both races, but that's not possible, so make do."

"Sir, yes, sir!"

"As you say, Admirals."

Both admirals said, "Dismissed," at the same time. Samus picked up the long since unused holographic disk and put it back in the armor of her left arm.

Samus and the Master Chief left the room, heading back to the hanger. The Spartans stood up and snapped to attention.

"All right, everyone aboard the Pelican, on the double."

The Spartans double-timed it aboard, the Master Chief and Samus went into the gunner. The Master Chief didn't go with his team mainly because he wanted to ease the load on the Pelican. Adam took control of the Pelican, closed the hatch, and both left the colony.

"So where is your home world?"

"Can't tell you, its an hour or so away. Adam, you know where to go."

"Yes." The gunner maneuvered on top of the Pelican, the barrier appeared, and they jumped explosively into subspace.

The Master Chief studied Samus's back until she turned to face him, "Yes?"

John just stood there, she had managed, again, to practically read his mind. That was getting on his nerves. At the Master Chief's response, or lack thereof, she rolled her eyes and turned back around.

John tried to figure it out, Aran had disobeyed orders and yet was seemingly patted on the back and given yet another mission of high priority. That confused him. He didn't behave like a civilian, or a military officer either, so what was he? Aran used "Admiral" instead of "sir", and would go without for several sentences running, but a civilian wouldn't even do that. He closed his external speakers, and spoke with Cortana.

"Cortana, can you get information out of this ship about anything?"

There was a full three-second pause as the AI processed the request, "Just scraps of information."

"Good, show me."

She displayed the results on his heads-up display, "I found this lying around in the ship's network."

**Hunter Registry for SAMUS ARAN:**

**Name: Samus Aran**

**Age: Unknown**

**Occupation: Space Hunter, previously unknown**

**Years of Service: 16 (all information after that was in accessible)**

**Description of SPACE HUNTERS:**

**The Space Hunters are an elite organization of bounty hunters. They tend to demand high pay for their services and only receive dangerous top-level missions from the government, or leaders of other races that are cleared by the Galactic Federation. They tend to work by themselves. Very rarely do they work together, or on the same job.**

**Job report feedback for bounty hunter SAMUS ARAN number 37:**

**Samus's recent job on Vertigo was excellent. We are very grateful to your top bounty hunter for doing a job that all the others refused. The job was done much quicker than any of us expected, and better. There are hardly any traces of pirate activity left from our planet, and we think that they will leave us alone now that he came over here. **

**The pay he demanded afterwards was quite reasonable as well. Many thousands of units less than we expected. The pay is being transferred to you as we speak. He described the job as SNAFU, which we are still trying to figure out the meaning of. Could you tell us what that means?**

**News Article in a galactic report on SAMUS ARAN, dated five years ago:**

**Elite Hunter, Samus Aran, completes another mission on the abandoned Vertigo planet, which was claimed by Pirates six months ago. The people who hired Aran claimed him to be artisan of his craft. "Undoubtedly Samus's recent success was helped by powered suit he wears," is what their leader, Sati, told us. The powered suit appears to be made by the ancient Chozo race, according to archeologists that worked on the planet Zebes, which was once inhabited by the Chozo.**

**Many believe Aran to be a male cyborg, there are a few claims that Samus is actually a female by fellow bounty hunters, most believe them to have been drunk at the time. He is believed to be physically infused with his suit. Samus remains quiet on the issue and refuses to talk to the press in general.**

**He only made one comment when questioned, "How I do my job, where my suit comes from, what I am and anything relating to me or my job in general is none of your, or the public's for that matter, concern. Stop asking me questions already. I get the jobs done and it pays my expenses, that's all you ever need to know."**

**None of our top investigators can turn up any scrap of information. One refused to continue after Samus allegedly fired a shot from his arm cannon at him, missing on purpose. He said Samus caught him investigating.**

Cortana tracked his eye motion as he read the details and spoke as he finished reading, "Sorry, that's all I could get. The ship's AI locked up all the data after I got that."

"That's all right." That was actually more then he had the right to expect from Cortana. At least he now had a name and some information on Samus. He copied the information and sent it to the other Spartans. They had every right to this information as he did.

An hour passed, and finally they jumped explosively into normal space once more. Before both sub screens was a planet, about one and a half times the size of Earth. Its surface was red, dotted by light gray clouds and covered in expansive forests, rivers, lakes, oceans, and deserts.

Ah, time for my explanation. Yes, I do know that Samus can take her suit off. I know this extremely well. I even searched for the images that they show you after beating Fusion. I looked at them before typing this explanation. Most of the pictures are Samus in the past, like memories. Yes, she can take her helmet off with the fusion suit. I _am_ aware of this. The only picture where she's an adult and not wearing her suit that I see could be a picture from earlier in life, I don't know, plus it's mainly fan service.

About the cyborg thing, that's what people think she is because they don't know really. That too is better explained with the new data. And about her previous age, I still stick with like late thirties to 40. There's a logical explanation for this, it's because of how old she looks. I think she matured faster then most humans because of her infusion with Chozo blood, but I think that she looks younger then she is, like mid thirties, look at the pictures people, please. Or would being withered at 40 be more acceptable for you?

Also, she was a lieutenant before becoming a bounty hunter, as I hear, and that's pretty high up. She left Zebes at 14 or 15, yeah. But honestly, would the military hire someone _that_ young? Also it would take a while to become a lieutenant, for Samus I say four years, after being hired into the military at 18-19. There are rules, seriously.

I really don't think that there were fewer then four years between becoming a bounty hunter and becoming an Space Hunter. Seriously, who, barring being drunk or on drugs, would give a practical nobody a high-class job like the one on Zebes? As for the years after that, it's up to the person, but I'd say a while. And also I'd like to quote the official metroid fusion site, "Samus's exploits in Metroid Fusion are just the latest accomplishments in a very long hunting career." I don't know, but anything less then six years doesn't count as a very long career for me.

This is what I gathered from what I've been told and what I know of Metroid. This is what I think, and yes, you can think differently, you can even know differently, having had more first-hand experience with Metroid then I (not hard to do). However, this is a fan fiction, meaning it's based off of what I know and think. Because I know so little of Metroid, having played so little of it, I'm not writing more until I _know_ more.


	9. Chapter 5 Of Chozo

Look, folks, I'm back, I'll be trying to update biweekly...which should give you time to read each chapter, I mean man, 13 pages…so much. (I'd love this personally...but I'm a bookworm) So, I've updated the last few chapters to make them more "Fusion Friendly" (Yeah, I finally played Fusion), and stuff. If you're new, well then never mind that...

I can't guarantee the whole "biweekly" thing with school and whatnot, but I'll try. Um...that's it so far. Anything that is confusing now (trust me, the crap will be confused out of you) will be cleared up by the end of the story, so please don't ask, I'm not going to explain it.

* * *

**1200 Hours, August 30, 2552 (Military Calendar)**

**Unknown Star System, in orbit around an as of yet unidentified planet**

Before both sub screens was a planet, about one and a half times the size of Earth. Its surface was red, dotted by light gray clouds and covered in expansive forests, rivers, lakes, oceans, and deserts.

"Adam, let them know we're coming, and land."

"As you say," The two ships gently breached the atmosphere of the planet below. A red heat barely collected about the shields, due to their shape. They landed on a plateau, one hundred fifty feet about the ground. There was a tunnel roughly carved into the cliff side that would gently turn and twist to bring them to the ground.

Below was a stone built city. It was truly magnificent, like ancient Aztec ruins brought back to life, but better. The city wove in and out through the trees surrounding it, so as not to disturb a piece of wild life. Wooden bridges were strung about the city. It had an antique sort of luster, however, buried in, under, and throughout the city were small bits and pieces of technology, varying from partially advanced, to full fledged advance like Samus's suit. There were living creatures hidden among the stones, but they hid from the newcomers. They had seen the ships before they even landed.

The hatches opened on the Pelican and the hatch on the gunner-slid open. The Master Chief looked back at Linda, still unconscious. Samus spoke up.

"Don't worry about it. I'll some medics come and get her. They should be able to help her."

The Master Chief nodded and stepped on the hatch and exited the ship, Samus following shortly after.

Everyone was out of the Pelican when Samus got out. She led them down the tunnel, two Spartans helping every injured one down the gentle incline. She strode briskly through the city, stopping at an intricately carved door, depicting a race that the Spartans weren't familiar with. It had an avian head, complete with beak and beady eyes, feathers for hair, and a piece of cloth wrapped around it, kin to a toga. Its fingers ended in talons, but it had a fairly humanoid body. Its arms were lanky, wrists coming to about its knees, its feet were similar to a birds, all the limbs having four spines each on the back of them, like feathers.

Samus reached up and pressed one of the eyes inwards, the eye fell in, as did the other, both glowed red. The door slowly slid open, revealing a set of stairs carved out of the stone that slowly transitioned to sleek metal, along with the walls. As they climbed further downwards, small cameras and panels appeared on the walls. At the bottom, a door opened to let them pass through.

Several living creatures like the one depicted on the wall stood lined along the side, five to a line. They stared expectantly at Samus. Columns, twenty in all, lined up behind the creatures, they were a strange marble hybrid of stone and metal. Samus walked passed them, the Spartans following behind led by the Master Chief. If this was Aran's home world, then how could he be human at all?

Samus stopped in front of two of them, at the other end of the room. They looked aged compared to the rest. They were also swathed in thick robes, a cloak falling over their shoulders. They had downy feathers on their face, unlike the other ten in the room who had clear complexions. She used her right arm to cross over her chest, so the muzzle of her gun stuck out above her shoulder. She pressed the back of her left wrist against the small of her back, and curled the hand partially. She bowed gracefully and elegantly, nearly a fluid-like motion, forwards.

"It is good to see." One of them said, in flawless English.

"It is good to have seen." She said, standing upright, letting her limbs hang loosely by her side. The Spartans got a feeling that these two were important. They could speak English, which relieved them. Then they noticed that the other creatures in the room were bowing their heads respectfully to Samus.

"What has brought you back to Ulj'koji so soon, Newborn?" Geniality poured from the other's scratchy voice.

"My," She searched for the proper term in this culture's language, but wouldn't sound massively wrong in the human's minds, eventually she just decided upon gesturing to the Spartans, and switching to a different language, «**hatch mates are need in of medical help, their suits are shot and in need of repairs, and I need a ship. I was hoping you would help, Honored Elders.**»

The Honored Elders looked back at the group and nodded. Both were secretly pleased at Samus's retention of their ways and language after all these years. The first one spoke, «**Of course, Hatchling, you only request our aid for you or for those in relation to you, and we will give it.**»

«**However**,» The second one said in the scratchy voice, «**We will want them to show their faces.**»

«**Due to ancient custom, I understand, Honored Elders.**» Samus turned back to the group, who were confused by her sudden language switch in the middle of a sentence, and on edge. "The Honored Elders request that your helmets be taken off. They wish to see the faces of those they will help."

The Spartans complied, after a moment. They showed different ethnicities among the humans, however, their skin was so pale to look white on all of them. They had varying lengths of hair of different colors, but all were short. There were ten men and nine women amongst them.

The first elder stood up, eyes smiling, but it was hard to tell due to the beak. The elder bowed her head, closing beady black eyes. The second following suit. The rest in the room did so as well. Their left shoulder slumped, forcing the tips of their fingers to touch the ground. The spread their right arms out, almost as if it was a wing, the cloak fell to the Elder's back to show that ghost-like feathers fell from the feathery spines along said limb.

"Peace be with your stay." The first elder said before sitting down. The other elder followed and the rest of the Choujin stood back the way they had been, in a stance similar to Samus's.

"It's a greeting," Samus told them, simplifying it so they could understand, "You can say it means 'May you relax while here'."

"Newborn"

Samus quickly cut the elder off. The Spartans just watched impassively as they could. There was a brief conversation that followed, and they didn't understand a word of it. But they noticed one of the honored elders shift what they surmised to be uneasily and issue what was assumed to be an order to the Samus.

Samus bowed again and turned back to the Spartans, "I'll take you to the medical center. I realize most of you can fight, but it will help if you get those internal injuries fixed, and so all of you can walk around normally."

With that she turned back around and walked to a door to the side. They followed with footsteps distinct to those wearing nearly half a ton of MJOLNIR armor.

The medical bay was simple in structure. It was roughly thirty feet across, dome in shape, peaking at forty feet. Around its edges were roughly twenty-two beds lying as parallel with the wall as they could, they were made to hold eight foot tall Choujin. There were, in total, five of the avian-like humanoids operating the room at one time.

When Samus entered she bowed to the five waiting for them. However, it was only done with her right arm, but still fluid. The Choujin returned the bow.

«**They will need clothes while they wait for their suits to be repaired, if they allow for it.**» Samus turned to face the nineteen humans behind herself. "This is the medical bay. They will heal your injuries in a few minutes. However, before that's done, we want to know, do you want our engineers to have a look at your suits? My scans show that there are several problems with them, unless," she said, allowing for error, "The gel layer is supposed to be acting up and gaskets to be blown among things."

The Master Chief looked at the rest of his squad. His suit was fine; she must have been referring to them. "No, their suits aren't supposed to be like that. I'll want them repaired if your engineers can manage it quickly." He gave them a look that they understood to be that he wanted one good explanation of what the hell happened to them.

"I'm sure they will be able to. Please put any and all weapons you have down on the table to your left. You'll get them back before we leave." They complied, which only amassed to eight weapons. Samus left the bay, taking the weapons with her. The door locked, so the Master Chief couldn't follow, after all, he was fully healed wasn't he?

The Choujin medics walked towards the group and politely asked the group to lie on one of the beds each. The Spartans complied, not having much else to do, they had no weapons, no idea of how strong these people were, and Samus had locked the door. There was a quick scan as the armor was removed, being teleported to another section of the underground city entirely.

The realistic looking holographic curtains fell about the beds at the same time, obscuring every one of them from view. A calming warm sensation spread across their bodies, their fingers and toes felt as if they were being tickled, something passed through their mind. Then it stopped. Each of the Choujin draped a piece of clothing over the head of each bed in a minute. They were jumpsuits, the color scheme was different for each and every one of them.


	10. Chapter 5 Of Chozo 2

The Spartans quickly dressed themselves and jumped down off the beds. The Master Chief looked around at what remained of his squad. He wondered why there was a different color scheme for each of them. He looked down inquisitively at the green garb that covered him, taking note of the blue symbols on the back of his hand. He'd have to ask Samus about this later. 

Samus walked in, almost as if on cue. Behind her stood two Choujin wearing metallic colored robes. And two holograms, flecks of lights orbiting their heads. One was female, algorithms running along her purple form. She had short hair that came down to her shoulders. The other was comprised of green light. He had short hair that was slicked back. John could make out the insignia of a captain on his shoulder. Beneath the both of them were two pads that hovered a few inches above the ground. They projected their images to nearly human proportions.

The female glided over to the Master Chief. "Ah, you seem to be in working order. Their engineers say that it will be a few hours before they are finished with repairs to your suits."

"Exactly, while you're waiting, you can access nearly any part of the structure that you want to. You can even go to the surface if you feel like it. You will be provided with a temporary data pad, it will alert you when your suits have been repaired."

She waved them out, they watched her, one of them spoke up. The Master Chief recognized her as Saundra, "Can I ask a question?"

"Sure."

"How come these suits have numbers on them?" She waved down to the number sketched in white over her heart, 015, her Spartan number.

Samus stared inquisitively at the number, then noticed it was the same for each of them, "That is where your name should be. No matter. Anything else?" Samus sensed still unabated curiosity from her.

"Yes, why do we all have different colors?"

"The color scheme is supposed to best fit you. The information can be added to your data pads for you to read at your leisure. Anything more?"

"No."

Samus stood at the edge of the door and gracefully gestured the hallway beyond the frame. "Then you may leave."

Cortana looked around at the wary Spartans and left, beckoning them to follow. The Master Chief stood resolutely in his spot.

Samus shook her head recognizing why, "I've already told them." She gestured to a small table hidden by a wall, the holographic curtains barely peeking out from behind the edge. "They decided it best to directly transport her. They'll let you know when she's conscious."

The Master Chief nodded, he was not going to have any of his squad forgotten. He followed Cortana with little other reason to stay. The rest of the Spartans followed. One of the Choujin that had come with Samus followed the nineteen Spartans who left the room, albeit reluctantly. The male hologram, and the other engineer remained.

The Choujin had a quick conversation in their native tongue. Then one of them led Samus to one of the beds at the far end, this one had quite a bit more machinery then any of the others. It also had been the only one unused by the Spartans aside from the one Linda currently occupied.

The Master Chief stood looking at the Spartans, his Spartans. They had been left with the promised data pads, the Choujinese scripts handily translated to their own language. They all stood at a laid back attention. He had finally gotten the story of what had happened on Reach from them and was amazed that so many of them had survived the landing.

"You can wander around if you want to. But I want you to travel in pairs. We'll trust them for now, but there's no point in making ourselves extra vulnerable." A big group would be too dangerous and too much of a target, but loners were easily picked off, although they seemed friendly, the Chief didn't quite trust these people quite yet. He nodded his head, "Dismissed."

"Master Chief sir, I don't mean to point out the obvious, but there is an odd number, sir."

The Master Chief looked at the speaker, Spartan 142 Alapison. "I know, I'll go with Cortana. Dismissed." This time he said it with some more force, waited for them to all leave, and then left as well, Cortana trailing behind him.

"Well, I don't know why you didn't make a group of three. I won't be much help in a sneak attack, although I doubt it. I had a moment while I was being transferred to this holo-pad to gather some information. It appears the Choujin are interested in peace, from what I got."

"And how could you know that? English isn't their first language."

"I spent most of the time getting a translation software." She stated simply, "This language is intriguing."

"Can you translate what they said earlier?"

Cortana pulsed blue for a moment, "It only works on their scripts, it's a series of symbols, I wouldn't know where to begin unless I could get access to their computers again."

He made his way back through the complex to the room they had first entered. Now it was eerily silent, and empty. He walked through and both sets of doors opened for him.

He breathed the air; it felt good, fresh. He then decided to wander around near the entrance, so he wouldn't stray too far.

A few minutes later another person walked through the doors; she looked around and stretched. She was not one of the Spartans, but another human entirely. She wore a jumpsuit similar to theirs, however. The formfitting blue cloth moving around her almost like a second skin. Pink geometric figures raced along her spine, a diamond settled between her shoulder blades. Where the Spartans had numbers, there was a small amount of Choujinese script, presumably her name.

She wandered through the surrounding area, the Choujin she encountered quickly moving out of her away. She wanted to laugh at the irony of it all. The last time she had seen these Choujin, they had almost looked down at her. Now they viewed her with awe and revere almost like she was an elder herself, yet the elders were still above her.

When she reached the outskirts she noticed a small stone tablet. Interesting, she had never seen that before. She moved with fluid grace to the tablet and looked it over. Engraved in the stone was script describing one person, below the writing was a human that she recognized instantly. She closed her eyes and sighed, a severe anger welling up inside of her. There was no use weeping for the dead, so emotions like that had left her, but still, she would see to it that Ridley paid dearly for what he had done. She clenched her fist, then let it fall limp, forcing the anger to the back of her mind.

"Is there something wrong, Lady?" The green AI called out to her, floating his way to her.

She turned and smiled faintly at the AI, "No, nothing, Adam." She swiped the back of her hand against the standing stone, over the figure. Then she brushed blonde strands of hair out of her eyes and swept them behind her left ear, longer rebels that weren't in the high ponytail she kept clumped together and framed her Japanese features.

The AI looked over at tablet after she had left, the human image was a likeness of him. He paused for a second wondering why _he _had a grave on a Choujin inhabited world, especially one like _that_. Interesting, he'd have to look into that.

A movement caught his interest and he noticed the Chief and Cortana moving in the direction Lady had gone. He followed.

The other Spartans wandered around the area casually. Two of them, 134-Latisha and 044-Anton, traversed a bit further from the area above the ground that the others had decided to stick to. A small path that led to a cliff had caught their interest. The path was worn, but well kept. In a few minutes they came to an area full of the grave tablets that the human had come across, although each of them had one Choujin per tablet, instead of humans. They didn't understand the scripts, but they figured that this had to be a grave of some sort. The both of them were about to leave when they noticed something strange. Quietly they moved to get a better look at the strange glow that was forming.

The Master Chief spotted the human and tried to figure out who she was. She wasn't one of his Spartans, that was for sure. Still, she appeared to be human from the back, she wasn't Choujin, and that was what confused him the most. She turned around, blue eyes glinting slightly. He recognized her face, it was tantalizingly familiar, but he just couldn't place it.

"One of the guests." She said aloud, to no one in particular, "How are you?" She offered him a quick bow, like the one Samus had given the Choujinese medics. That fluid motion was familiar as well, different from how the natives here did it. He shrugged it off; he'd have time to figure it out later.

"Good." He said simply.

She nodded and looked pointedly at the numbers on his chest, "Do you have an actual name, or are you just a number, one-one-seven?"

Her left wrist spasmed slightly, she felt something electric pulsing in it. She looked up at the Master Chief apologetically and pressed at the side of her wrist, under her skin. A short conversation was held inside her mind, while that was going on, she looked distantly up into the sky.

‹**Honored Elder?**›

‹**Hatchling, we have discovered something most perturbing. Please come to the science dome, with the one they call 117.**›

‹**As you say, Honored Elder.**› She turned to face the Master Chief, "Please, follow me. The Honored Elders wish to speak with you."

The Master Chief was vaguely relieved, it seemed as though she had forgotten about her earlier inquiry. He followed about a meter behind the Japanese woman, and thought. She was too tall, over six feet. He had never seen a human female naturally reach that height. The way she walked, familiar. A fluid grace, it was...that was it. She walked, moved, and spoke in the same manner as Aran.

However, for everyone one question one could answer, two more popped up. This was the case for the Chief. But if that was the Hunter, how come she was so familiar with these people? And why did they call her Newborn? Actually, he had been wondering that for a while, but now these questions were more prominent in his mind with that one question answered.


	11. Chapter 5 Of Chozo 3

Latisha stared at the white glow, wondering what was happening. When it got too bright, it took all her will to look away. Anton had stopped looking at it the moment it had appeared. When the glow faded they were staring at the transparent, but no less tangible, forms of several Choujin. The pale mist they were comprised of was white at the core of their beings and a pale blue where skin might have been. They bobbed gently in the air, half a foot above the ground. 

They turned their heads to stare at the two noncoms, who were suppressing their shock to see actual ghosts, eight of them. They peered inquisitively at the Spartans. Although they were unable to speak, disembodied voices filled the air, but they spoke a foreign language.

_**Interesting, they must know the Hatchling.**_

_**Yes, they must know her. Perhaps she brought them here.**_

_**What happened to the Great Poison?**_

_**Where are we? This is not Igu'nami.**_

_**Indeed, quite interesting. This looks like where our cousins settled, Ulj'koji.**_

_**Ulj'koji. What an interesting proposition. I wonder how our cousins are doing.**_

_**I believe we are shocking them.**_

_**That assumption seems correct. Perhaps we should talk to them, and find out where we are.**_

When the two solid beings noticed that the ghosts had quieted and were staring intently at them, they felt vaguely nervous at the appearance of the beings. Although, the apprehension was squashed down into the inner recesses of their minds in a matter of moments.

Latisha got the distinct feeling that these ghosts wanted them to say something. "Hi," was the most she could manage. Military training had trained her for almost everything that could happen on a mission: being stranded anywhere, separated from your team, surrounded with five hundred to one odds, combat in general, EVA, having to go without a higher up, and practically everything except this. Ghosts happened to be a bit beyond what she knew how to handle.

This seemed to please the beings, a voice spoke in slightly accented English.

_It is good to see. What planet's surface are we on? _The see-through being that the disembodied voice seemed to belong to gestured to the space surrounding the group with both arms.

Anton could make out what the voice was trying to ask, "Someone mentioned something about being at Ulj'koji before. But we really don't know ourselves."

_Ah, Idama, you were punctilious. We do bother Ulj'koji. The notion is intriguing. _One of the ghosts, who the voice presumably belonged to, seemed to go into deep contemplation.

_I know veracity is in your words, but how did you come to be here, not being acquainted with your destination?_

"Someone they call Newborn...Samus Aran."

_So you are cognizant of the Great Defender! Could you take us in her presence?_

"I guess so. We don't know where she is really, but maybe we can bring you to someone who does."

Anton and Latisha led the Choujinese ghosts back to the rural Aztec looking town. Eventually they were able to spot the Master Chief, and a stranger. The ghosts moved quickly over to the two.

_Hatchling, it is good to see._ One of them said, bowing to her.

"Good to have seen, Idama." She bowed as well. She stared at the ghosts, recognizing each one. But hadn't they all died out on Talon IV years ago? Anton and Latisha came up to the Master Chief.

"Chief, who is that?"

"Samus. Are those ghosts?" He didn't quite believe in ghosts, not being exactly superstitious, none of them were.

"We don't know, sir, but they seem like it, don't they?"

Samus sighed, "The Honored Elders wish to speak with me."

_Ah, it is clear. This is a strange occurrence indeed. _That happened to be the clearest and most understandable statement any of the Spartans had ever heard from a Choujin, and would ever hear, except from the elders.

Samus beckoned the Master Chief to follow her, he nodded to the two Spartans and followed two meters behind Samus. She led the noncom through a series of tunnels and rooms, eventually they came to another dome like the medical lab. The walls were rather plain, covered in holographic black with stars displayed on it, the same treatment on the floor too, the room was near pitch black. The Master Chief felt a brief moment of vertigo before reorientating himself. He spotted the two Choujin elders. And something in the shadows, his night vision allowed him to see that it was one of his Spartans.

"The young one is fully healed." Linda walked out of the shadows. She was wearing a jumpsuit like the rest of the Spartans; her colors were black and red. Her dark green eyes examined the newcomer warily, then she turned her attention to John. She saluted, he returned the salute and they both almost instantly relaxed, the Chief more so then Linda.

"What's going on, sir?"

"I'll explain later, Linda." He was just grateful that she had recovered from that alive.

Linda nodded, accepted this answer, assuming that he would also explain who Samus was. Samus was waiting expectantly for the Choujin elders to explain what they had called her and John here for. She doubted that it was just Linda, for they wouldn't have requested them to come to the science dome if that was the case. They certainly could have given Cortana the location and not requested her to be here as well.

Then, as if it was an answer to her question a holographic display of Earth's solar system appeared. It zoomed in on Earth itself.

"Samus, we have recently discovered something quite...troubling. From several calculations and measurements we have gathered from this solar system, and several others, our scientists believe that two universes have combined."

Samus crossed her arms, a little dubious of such a strong statement even for the Choujin, "Okay, why?"

"This was Earth over four hours ago, since then it has changed, watch its gravity well." An aura appeared around the planet and then quickly quadrupled in size before shrinking to double its original size, something else changed on the planet, the amount of clouds doubled as well, and for some reason the surface didn't look exactly the same as before, like there were a few more trees, "This has occurred with several, no most, of the planets in this galaxy. Also, two different governments have appeared for the humans, many solar systems have randomly gained more planets, and several others have sporadically appeared throughout this galaxy, and doubtlessly others, we are waiting for readings of this phenomenon from our other colonies in other parts of the universe."

"And you're telling me this, why?"

The holographic display changed to a solar system appeared and then zoomed in on a large gas giant of the system. It was the biggest planet.

"If we are accurate with our assumption, it will have much the same affect as two bubbles combining and becoming unstable and bursting. From what we can tell, there's a disturbance in space-time emanating from eight points in this galaxy that would cause the destruction of this universe instantly. From what we can tell, if one of them is destroyed, the destruction would not occur." The display turned around the planet to view the opposite side and zoomed in again, displaying a gigantic ring orbiting the planet. It was comparatively small, but that didn't mean it probably wasn't huge, "This is the closest point. You must destroy it."

Samus nodded, finally believing what they were saying from long experience with Choujin knowledge. She also understood everything they said and it seemed logical, even if a little far-fetched. She narrowed her eyes, "I'll take care of it after this mission."

"That won't be soon enough, we believe."

Samus stared at the display, willing it to become less monotone so she could pick out individual details, although it didn't. She walked up to the display and touched the side of the planet to her right. The display turned in that direction. She waved a hand in front of part of the planet, the forms of twelve ships popped out of the display, in Samus. She took a step back and looked at them. She looked back at the Master Chief, "Well, even if they're wrong, this might be another reason to take a look over in that area. Those aren't pirates."

He agreed, he didn't believe what the Choujin were saying about the universe and all, even though it made some sense. However that was a small armada of Covenant ships that Samus had just picked out of the display.

"Those are Covenant ships."

"Think one of those prophet types might be on one of them?"

He shrugged, he didn't know, but it would be a good idea to take a look. The holographic display disappeared, "Newborn, the ship you requested will be here in eighteen hours, the ones bringing it here had to stop, planet in distress."

Samus nodded, and left. The Master Chief followed her, and Linda followed him.

When they were above ground, Samus spoke more to herself then the two soldiers following her, "If what they say is true, then the others showing up makes sense." She rubbed her forehead, she had understood it as the honored elders had said it, but, if just these two universes had collided, how had they been brought back to life? She remembered destroying a few of their ghosts.

"By others do you mean those...ghosts?"

"Ghosts, sir?" Linda looked up curiously at John.

Samus turned to look at the Master Chief, then at Linda, who had spoken. Samus nodded her head, "You've been out most of the time since we got here." Then she looked at the Master Chief before turning her back to them both, "Yes, those were the ghosts. The Choujin of Talon IV left their physical bodies and became spirits on that planet. When the Space Pirates brought Phazon to the planet, they never really stood a chance against it. They had given up fighting." Her shoulders slumped, fractionally, as if what she was going to say was hard to say, "When I got there, all I could do was get rid of their ghosts. They weren't as peaceful as the Choujin here, I remember killing most of those ghosts that met us earlier. I don't see how they're here, and aren't affected by Phazon contamination."

John nodded and walked away, Linda watched Samus for a moment with her dark green eyes but then quickly followed her commander. She wanted a briefing on just what had happened since they had gone down to the space station near Reach to secure the NAV disk.

Samus shook herself out of her mood and walked on. True, that while the only more emotionally trying missions she had ever had were on Zebes and another planet, it had still been hard on her, she recognized most of the Choujin ghosts that had been infected by Phazon, most of them were ones that she had grown up knowing. Zebes had only been more difficult because she had grown up there, and had to visit places she knew well, and look on in despair as they had fallen into ruin. And then there was the one...she didn't want to think about that.

All three had been hard on her. Probably the hardest mentally on her then any of the others. But sorrow for fallen friends was normally wasted. Sorrow and depression for fallen souls only held them to this world. Or at least, so said the Choujin. In any case, it was distracting. She moved on, to find Latisha and Anton, and find out more about where, when, how and why those ghosts had appeared.


	12. Chapter 6 Of Weapons

My only comment is that I positively _suck_ at writing out fights. I'm either to skimpy or too damn detailed. Oh, and weapon modifications were fun. Very fun. Enjoy the twelve pages of text. (Wait...that's three comments...)

* * *

**0525 Hours, August 31, 2552 (Military Calendar)**

**Unknown Star System, Choujin colony on the surface of Ulj'koji**

Samus stepped lightly into the breaking dawn of the Choujin planet. She breathed the fresh air, feeling refreshed after the previous day's battle. She walked over a hill on the outskirts of the city and quirked an eyebrow when she saw all the Spartans there. Some were sparring with each other, others were stretching, and a few others were talking, precious few though, only one or two. She had never seen normal people get up this early in the morning. Then again, she had decided that this group was far from being normal, at least by human standards that was.

She decided to hide in the shadows and watch the group. Adam was conversing, via electronic impulse, with Cortana. Adam stopped and turned the holographic head towards Samus's position, "Good morning, Lady."

Samus, much chagrined, walked out of the shadows, trying to pretend she was just passing through them when she had been spotted. "Morning, Adam," She looked over at the Chief, who was watching his squad nearby, she was going to say his number, but it felt unnatural to refer to him as such in her mind, "Master Chief, Cortana."

With that she sprung easily seven feet into the air to settle in a branch. She watched the Spartans uneasily. Adam had given her a full medical account of what was abnormal with these people compared to normal humans. From what she could figure they had been put through pure hell, as their bodies had been surgically altered. They didn't worry her, but their government did.

True enough, her body, no her very DNA, had been altered to be incomparable to human, but the thing was that the Choujin had the ability to do so safely, the humans didn't. Also, without the Choujin doing so she would have died. It bothered her, what sort of government would be willing to put its own people through that sort of experience for what? These alterations had to be old, older then their knowledge of the Covenant to her knowledge. Had the top heads just decided to see what they could do to people one day? How many innocents had died then? It bothered her, more then the Galactic Federation breeding metroid or it trying to contain the X Parasite.

Her concern and unease didn't show upon her relatively calm face, however, she just watched them, how they fought each other, trying to figure out their exact abilities. They didn't seem to suffer any from what had happened to them, so that was good. Their combat skills seemed above par. Nearly on, if not exactly on, level with her own skills. She nodded to herself, this was good. It would help them a lot if their reaction times were as fast as her own, especially with the sort of missions she tended to get.

Samus didn't exactly care what the admiral had said, her missions were always extraordinarily difficult and there was usually a ninety-five percent, if not more, chance of being killed or injured beyond ability to work. Maybe the extra people would lower the odds, maybe not. She decided only time could tell.

After a while Samus got bored watching the sparring matches and decided to see how strong the Spartans were for herself. She jumped down from her tree branch and posed her idea to the Master Chief, who agreed. After all, if he was going to be working with someone he knew quite literally next to nothing about, a simple match could help him out considerably. That way he wouldn't be let down in the middle of a battle between them and the Covenant.

On the pirate ship, he had been busy with pirates, so he didn't really have a good idea on how good exactly Samus was. All the other Spartans in the field stopped and decided to watch, it could be very useful to see how well this bounty hunter could stand up to the Master Chief.

Although John was by far not the fastest, strongest, or smartest out of them he was still their leader and by far the most balanced out of all of them. So if Samus could stand up to the Chief, well she was probably just as good as them and they could rely on her more then normal military people. They were really just a liability on a battlefield.

After they stood at the ready, Samus started the match off. She threw a quick punch at his chest, brilliantly fast, but not fast enough to catch a Spartan off guard. He exploited the very split second she was regaining her balance after his dodge. A fist came towards her side, but not fast enough to get her either. She used her left forearm to block the blow and brought the side of her right hand towards his head horizontally. He ducked and stepped backwards. He grabbed Samus's wrist to stop another punch that had come at him while he had moved backwards.

She lifted her free hand, and squeezed his wrist bones together. His hand involuntarily let go of her wrist. She took his brief split second of recovery from the move to get a good foot away. Samus's fist lashed out in a cobra strike, hitting the left side of the Chief's chest. Simultaneously, he landed a blow on her left shoulder. They both moved away from each other.

Samus lifted her right hand and gave the abused part of her left shoulder a glancing rub as the Chief merely rolled his left shoulder back, stretching the muscle. They both put the soreness away to the backs of their minds. Both blows had been harder then they had expected them to be, and they had both hit harder then they intended. However, their bodies had reflexively gone at a higher portion of their real strength out of instinct and a slight adrenaline rush.

When they were close enough to strike at each other again, Samus shoved the heel of her right palm towards the exact same point she had hit him before. He dodged and she was barely able to lift her left forearm up in time to deflect a hit aimed at her left shoulder. The Chief's left fist flew towards her, but she grabbed it with her right hand. They were stuck stalemated for less then a second.

Samus moved her torso backwards and started to spin. She left go of his left fist as she went one hundred and eighty degrees, bringing her left elbow down to bear on his left bicep. His right hand reformed into a fist and came down towards the small of Samus's back. At the same time he drew his left side away from her elbow. Regardless of whether or not the blow hit, he spun to his right to face her, albeit it a foot away.

Samus managed to dodge the hit by bending backwards slightly. Her momentum carried her a full three hundred and sixty degrees, back to the Chief. This, not being a good position to hold to someone you happen to be in any sort of match with, and she knew it well, Samus did a back flip, turning in mid air, landing four feet away, but not leaving herself open to an attack.

All these moves were carried out very quickly, only taking up the span of five seconds. Neither fighter was tired or willing to admit defeat. Neither had lost yet in their life. Plus, neither was tired.

Samus used her right fist to aim a blow at the Chief's solar plexus. The Chief arced forwards and at the same time moved backwards to move out of her full reach. Then he stepped back into range and aimed a blow at the small soft spot that was the dip in the collarbone with his right palm heel. She used her right hand to punch away the strike from her front and immediately brought up her left arm and karate chopped the Chief's right elbow so that limb went towards the ground.

At the same time this was going on John's left hand was coming in at a horizontal chop towards her right side. She sidestepped the blow, arching to the side to make sure that his fingers didn't even graze his target. She bore up her left fist and struck with cobra like speed at his face. The blow was dodged by a simple last millisecond duck. He moved to the side and brought up his right hand and this time he managed to get a blow on her left side.

While his attention was for the most part focused on getting in the blow on Samus, his opponent managed to get in a blow with her right fist to his solar plexus. Meanwhile, she managed to shove him away with her recently unoccupied left arm. At the same time he pushed her towards the ground with his left arm.

Samus quickly struck out her left arm, caught herself from falling, brought her right palm onto the earthen surface that was the arena and shoved herself into another back flip. Except this one was smaller and tighter so she landed curled half a foot away. She stood up quickly. She raised her left hand, quickly preparing to block a strike.

At the same time Samus was doing that, John had used his left arm to break his fall. Then he quickly pushed off to the side with his left arm, rolled over once, and shoved himself into a standing position by putting his right arm behind his back and pushing off of the ground. His knees were bent for a moment before he stood straight.

The both of them had been winded a little by the last blow, the last series of intricate moves they had been using to dodge, block and strike. However, they could both go on for a while, nigh on for the rest of the day. Samus felt her wrist shake. She was unwilling to take her eyes off of the Chief until the match was over, but after a stand still of a second the small shake had turned into a violent spasm. She shook her left arm towards the ground violently, jarring the systems of her cybernetic implant momentarily.

"Draw? I believe this has gone on long enough for the reason of this match." A draw, although she still hated it, was a lot better then having to forfeit anything.

The Chief nodded his head after a brief moment of deliberation. He stood down into a more relaxed position and crossed his arms. Immediately after his agreement, Samus had lifted up her left wrist and pressed into it with a finger, keeping the pressure steady on the side of her wrist. She stared into the sky, eyes becoming inattentive and unfocused. After a minute and a half, Samus snapped back into reality, letting both arms rest at her sides. She looked at the Chief squarely.

"The honored elders say that the ship will be arriving in an hour. Your suits have also been repaired, and modified a little. They want you to make sure nothing's wrong with them. This way." She turned and walked off towards the Choujin city. The Spartans followed.

Although the Master Chief had been expecting a reasonably matched fight, as they both took and received the same amount of hits, the rest of the Spartans were shocked. They had never really seen Samus in battle or fought with her. They had been too preoccupied to notice how well she had ever managed to hold up against the Covenant. Not to mention a good six of them hadn't even been around at that time.

This relieved them. It was the fact that she was good in a fight and wouldn't become a liability in battle that they were able to relax and accept this mission easier then they had before. They kept up with her rather brisk pace as she led her way through the city. The Choujin that they passed in the side streets Samus led them through gave the hunter a wide enough berth so that she could pass and gave the group of twenty super soldiers an even wider berth, probably because they were practically clustered.

Shortly enough they were led down a short flight of steps. The winding steps went on for what seemed to be forever. In a few minutes the group of twenty-one super humans reached the bottom of the flight. The Chief was reminded quite suddenly, and randomly, of when they were first introduced to their armor, the MJOLNIR series I. This was mainly because they had to go down to what he had thought had been the core of planet at the time. A door whirred open, he managed to spot Samus's left arm moving to her side in the dim lightly that came from the room. For some reason the Choujin liked darkness in their scientific facilities, or at least dim lighting. His eyes quickly adjusted to the darkness.

Samus lifted her right arm and snapped, the sound carried through the room and echoed. Lights flared on, the Spartans winced a little at the sudden light, but they readjusted to the brightness. They looked around, lined up around the two walls adjacent to the one they were standing in front of were twenty pairs of polished iridescent green MJOLNIR armor, ten per side, and on the right wall another suit of black and red armor, which was assumed to be Samus's own. Above each set of armor were holographic letters, or rather numerals, it declared whose armor this happened to be. Above Samus's was the same symbol of Choujinese script that was her name.

A Choujin walked into the room, his eyes were wrinkled, and soft black downy feathers coated his pale skin, "These suits were hard for our engineers to work on. It was different from what they expected. Even though your AI lent them the schematics of the suit, it was still hard. There may be some alterations in the suits from what you may be used to, for good or for bad. It would be appreciated if you tried them out and found out the adjustments here as opposed to the battle field." His thick gold and purple robes and black cloak swished and dragged on the floor as he walked. He stopped moving when he finished speaking, in the center of the room.

The Spartans walked over to their respective suits of armor and could see most of the differences immediately. The suits were less bulky; the reactor packs on their backs were also considerably smaller. In many ways these suits reminded them of their first set. Samus walked over to the elder and bowed to him, "Pale Wind, has my suit been altered as well?"

The Master chief decided that Pale Wind was an odd name, but them using numbers as their names probably seemed just as odd to them.

"Yes, hatchling. Our engineers adapted the suit using some bits and pieces from their suits. Such as the mental interface, much like it was when it was fused with you." Samus crossed her arms and waited for him to continue, this would be much of an improvement if it worked, "They also adapted the Luminoth technology you gained recently to the suit to give you the normal unlimited ammo, the honored ones thought it would be useful on your new journey, under advisement of the seeing one." He chuckled to himself as he sensed Samus's impatience at the lengthy and verbose statements, "You've never changed, Newborn."

"Glad to hear it." Her voice was dry and hinted at being sarcastic, "Anything else I might want to know a head of time?"

"No, not that I've been told at the very least. Oh, the engineers wish you wouldn't have it changed so often, however, they managed to infuse all the old modulations of your old suit with data from your old logs. They were grateful that you never clear your suit's logs."

Samus shrugged and walked over to her suit. There was really nothing she could do about that. However, if that was the case, her suit was now the most useful thing around, if it could jump into sub-space, she might just go around in her suit without a ship. She lifted up the left arm of the suit and pressed a few buttons. The suit jumped into her left wrist. She closed her eyes and the motes of light reappeared from her wrist and raced along her form, covering her with the black and red suit. The static energy that hinted at her shielding jumped to life as soon as the suit was reformed.


	13. Chapter 6 Of Weapons 2

She stretched, she could feel the alterations in the way the armor moved in the split second before it was adjusted to her body so that it felt like a second skin. It moved smoother and easier. Not to mention now that it was defused from her body, she wouldn't feel pain as the suit took hits, as if she were the suit itself. She looked to the right side of her HUD, of the original three, the two outer bars had gone missing, leaving only one that read 250. 

John and rest of the Spartans wondered how they would get their suits on. They didn't have a cybernetic implant in their wrists that would put it on for them. Samus took off her helmet and looked over at them, unobstructed. The Master Chief could have sworn that he had seen her eyes flash green before turning blue.

"There's a button under a panel on the left arm. Press that." Again, it was like she had read their minds. That was starting to get annoying. They found the switch without mishap; the Chief was the first to press his switch. The lights flickered as the suit was teleported onto him in motes of light. He immediately accessed his suit's system readings. Everything looked clear. Cortana hacked into the suits system's functions from her holo-pad and checked over every detail carefully. Long strains of algorithms raced across her body, too fast for even the Spartans to keep up.

"Chief, your suit's functioning normally. The shielding is better, and regenerates faster for as far as I can tell. The reactor's putting out a higher amount of energy, but working safely. As far as I can tell they just improved it, the reactor doesn't look like it's going to run down from this."

He nodded, that was good to know. He watched as the rest of his team put their suits on. He watched them all carefully for signs of the suits malfunctioning. Cortana checked all the suits. In a minute she was able to tell them that the suits were all the same. She could see nothing wrong with them. Of course, he would have to make sure of that before battle came. The elder nodded to himself as he looked at the group.

"Good, good, come with me. We have weapons for you as your suits don't come with them."

As the elder lead the way, Samus followed him, her stride was more relaxed and a little less graceful, but only slightly. The group came into another room, although much larger. Sitting on a holographic table near the door was a large assortment of weapons and grenades.

The Spartans looked questioningly at the solid, yet transparent, table. One of them, 123-Blanche, tried out the table with her hand it was completely solid. The Choujin elder chuckled at their surprise, sensing it under their stoic facial reactions, which were concealed under emotionless orange reflective visors. "It's a bit advanced for humans."

That trait was starting to bother the Master Chief. How was it that these people could almost literally sense what they were thinking? He quickly shoved his discontent out of mind; however, they had probably already sensed it.

He examined all of the weapons splayed out on the table, there were twenty MA5B assault rifles, seven M19 SSM rocket launchers, seven S2 AM sniper rifles, several M6D pistols, six M90 close assault Shotguns, and a few plasma rifles and pistols. When Samus had taken the weapons earlier, there had only been six assault rifles, one plasma pistol and one plasma rifle.

Not to mention that none of them had had any of the M9 HE-DP fragmentation grenades lying near the assorted collection of human and Covenant weapons. Plus he could see one of their nuclear "grenades", a Fury tac-nuke. It was about the size of an over-inflated football. Also there were several loose clips of ammo near the supply of grenades. He looked down questioningly at the elder. Samus had taken to standing next to a wall and seemed to be trying to remove herself from the area mentally.

"Is there something wrong, Hatchling?" Samus suppressed a grin and quickly buried her amusement. It seemed that Choujin elders seemed to call most others hatchling, well unless they were Choujin themselves. She had never once seen an elder refer to another Choujin as hatchling.

For once since he had figured out this ability, the Master Chief was glad that the elder could easily read his mind. Although, he had forced the confusion to stay in his mind to make sure that it was noticed.

"All of these weapons, where did you get them?"

"Oh?" He seemed to be reaching back for the memories and explanations, "Oh yes. Our engineers talked with your AI for the schematics of any more weapons that you might find useful after the Great Defender told us that you would need a supply of arms. Then they built these and repaired your old ones. They have made several modifications to the ammunition system, however, to make them more efficient, and easier to make to take less time to create for them."

Samus looked at the loose guns, if the Choujin had worked on them, they were bound to be efficient and good. Nothing was better then Choujin technology, at least, in her mind. And that seemed very well to be the truth throughout all her missions that spanned across nearly the entire galaxy. Although her arm cannon was definitely better then these, no way it couldn't be.

The petty officer looked at the weapons. If this was the race that had created Aran's suit and weapon, then from what he had seen of her suit and power cannon in battle; what was the extent of the modifications to the weapons? He certainly was eager to see what the changes did to how he would have to fight.

"New born, I'll leave them to you. Your ship arrives in ten senku."

Samus nodded her head and looked over at the Spartans. She quickly shifted her visor to scanning mode and scanned every weapon and the suits. This took about a minute. She decided that she loved the new interface the Choujin had added to her suit, it was easier and more battle friendly. She also decided that since the Choujin were primarily peaceful that they had never needed to make such an interface because their suits were advanced enough that such a thing was never needed. Of course, for someone who was almost constantly in and out of fights with pirates and other nasty things of the sort, this made life a lot easier.

She looked at them, she could sense their stares at her, watching her. Why did they think she had an answer? No matter. "Do you want to test out your suits, weapons, or both?" She knew the answer before they could voice it. Simply because she had a feeling from the way she had seen this group behave before. It had nothing to do with her Choujin enhanced abilities, this time.

She waited for a verbal response before speaking again, rather the nod was good enough for her. "I suppose you'd like to test the shielding." There was a nod and the Chief stepped in front of the rest of the Spartans. It appeared as though he wanted to have his shields tested. Samus mentally nodded, good leader. Of course, she had to make sure first, just to make sure she didn't piss them off.

After his acknowledgement, Samus lifted up her arm cannon arm. The quickest and surest test of the suit's shielding systems was to put them to the test. The cannon shifted shape, elongating and glowing red. The temperature of the cannon warmed, by about fifty degrees centigrade.

"This is the test. I fire this at you, you get hit, you tell me how your shields reacted, and I'll tell you how good that is." She paused thoughtfully, "Or you decide for yourself how good that is. Okay?"

The Master Chief paused, and what if the blast over loaded his shielding and it didn't recharge? Then again, this was supposed to see what would happen when he took a blast, "Fine." He steeled himself as the cannon was leveled with his chest, a bolt of plasma energy gathered in the muzzle for a moment. His mouth tightened, waiting, fighting down his nearly instinctive reaction to start moving to avoid the hit.

The superheated ionized air raced from the mouth of Samus's arm gun to the Spartan. It contacted, and the force of the blast knocked him backwards. He checked the blue bar on the upper right part of his HUD. It went down a quarter of the way and practically shot back up to normal half a second later. He wondered if that was really how his shields had reacted before deciding that Cortana was right. She pulsed blue for a millisecond.

"Reactors behaving the same way as before, Chief."

"How far did they go down?" Samus watched him, waiting for his response. The other Spartans in the room were also watching him carefully.

"One fourth, recharged faster too." Normally it took the Chief's shields a full three seconds to recharge, five if it went down all the way.

Samus closed her eyes to think clearly. Before, on the pirate ship, she had to wait in the room a little for the shielding units to recharge, almost after every fight. Or cover him as the shields recovered. If that kind of energy beam, a fractional charge of her plasma cannon, took his shields down one quarter of the way; if they ever went against Space Pirates they were screwed. However, not screwed as badly if they hadn't stopped at this Choujin colony first. Also, the shielding recharging faster was a good thing, maybe it would recharge during the fight and make up for the poor amount of hits the shields could take. Her shielding was a lot tougher, but it didn't recharge.

After a full minute Samus started to respond after the Chief's answer, "You should be able to survive since we should be going up mostly against those Covenant types." She had no idea as to how good the old shields were good against the Covenant, but now they were better.

She waved almost carelessly at the far side of the room, "Fire the weapons against those walls. They're made of Cordite. It's a strong material that shouldn't break." On the far side she had waved towards were four or five walls that were panels with meter wide gaps in between each one. They were solidly fixed to the floor and ceiling.

"Cordite is a strong material, in lab tests it's impervious to war-grade missiles." Adam explained to them, as they were seemingly unfamiliar about the material. None of the Spartans failed to notice the AI's posture. His hands rested, curled, in the small of his holographic back, much the stance a high ranking-military officer might take. John had noticed Samus taking the same posture once or twice while she wasn't wearing the suit. Then he remembered the barely visible captain insignia on his shoulder. Was it possible that the AI had a military rank?

The Chief cut the thought short and looked over at the weapons. War-grade missile? He didn't exactly think that those guns could be made to fire one, maybe the M19's, but nothing else.

He picked up an assault rifle. The suit automatically up-linked with the weapon in his hand, a large blue circle appeared on his HUD, allowing him to easily aim the gun. He noticed something weird with the head's up, however. On the left side of the display was a new setting. It was a slim rectangle, cut in half diagonally. The upper half of the rectangle was colored in the same blue as everything else on his display. He shrugged it off, and took aim at the wall.

The trigger was squeezed, a spray of three bullets sped out of the mouth. When they impacted the wall, there were several small explosions. He stared at the black ash marks on the wall and then at the gun.

Samus read the display that had suddenly shown on her visor. She sped through the text four lines every two seconds. "Two settings to the guns. That was the new setting the Choujin added. There should be a way to change"

The Master Chief needed her to say no more. He focused for a brief moment of time on changing the rectangle on his HUD to the opposite coloration. The armor reacted to his will instantly, the display changed. A trio of the normal super hardened bullets pinged against the same wall he had blasted earlier. They bounced off the wall, spent shells landing on the ground.

Samus nodded, much impressed. He had figured it out before she had; then again, it _was_ him in the armor and not her. She leaned against the wall, "Test the others if you want."

Linda immediately reached out for the S2. After all, she was the best sharp shooter in the group, so this was likely to be one of her primary weapons. She leveled the gun out, activated the zoom setting on the rifle. Her entire world was consumed into the 2x magnification, shortly there after the 8x setting. She tested out the night vision, sight blurring into different shades of green, but it wasn't grainy like most night vision scopes she had worked with. It was clicked off. She too noticed the new feature in the HUD.

The gun fired a normal sniper rifle's bullet. She decided to test something out, the display quickly shifted, the area where the bullet landed this time was engulfed in exploding gunpowder. It definitely _wasn't_ quiet, or secretive; then again no rifle ever was. But it would catch the enemy off guard, considering there wasn't a sound from the barrel as the gunpowder ignited. Not even a cough from a silencer.

The bullets had been given special Choujin primitive gunpowder. It could ignite in two ways, one for a normal bullet, and another in such a way that when the head of the bullet struck its target, some stored gasses in the bullet case would explode, almost like a miniature C-12 charge. In the second mode for the human weapons this was the case, the speed was impeded, however. This was because some of the powder wouldn't ignite, remaining to catch when the gasses exploded.

Needless to say, the powder was extremely volatile at best so the shells had been made differently to keep them from exploding in someone's face accidentally. How this was even remotely close to being easier to make was a complete mystery to Samus as she read up on the bullets. Then again, for Chozo, complex was simple and simple was complex.

Within a few minutes each and every weapon was tested. Each Spartan got accustomed to each of the modified weapons. None of them were willing to use the plasma weapons. Although, the Choujin had made them out of the same metal of Samus's suit and they fired their version of plasma, it still looked like the Covenant weapons. Although, the fact that the Choujin could make the ammo of the plasma guns infinite by drawing on the power of their battle skins to super heat and ionize the air, did make them somewhat appealing. There was the added bonus of the second setting being really different from the normal of plasma, they never over heated, and never needed a cool down time.

The plasma rifle fired a super chilled blast in the second mode. The needler's shots embedded themselves into the walls a centimeter before exploding in an electrical blast. The plasma pistol fired a blast that was twice as hot and didn't look like normal plasma, it looked more like fire.

The walls were scorched, impacted, and exploded, but they didn't shudder. Not even under the impact of the new second mode to the modified M19, which was a little weaker then Samus's super missile, which she showed to the Spartans. In a sense telling them that this wasn't big stuff, but it would be useful for them. This would make overwhelming Covenant plasma shields a whole lot easier.

Just was John was about to fire a charged shot from the plasma pistol Samus shot her hand out to stop him from over charging the weapon.

"Don't do that." Her tone was even, but warning.

"Why?" John asked, his curiosity rose.

"Because, we're too close. Don't ever use that at close range." John looked over at the wall, they had to be at least ten meters away. This was too close for the charged shot? He placed the gun down. This was obviously for clearing the other side of a canyon.

"What about ammo for these weapons?" John was not under the impression that the half dozen clips of different types of bullets for all the guns and a few rockets would help in any sort of situation. It wasn't enough for one Spartan to get through a battle.

Samus shrugged, "Probably have it in engineering, waiting to transport it to the new ship."

Adam spoke up, "That's correct. Speaking of ships, ours is in the system. They want us to head up." The male computer had just received the message from a local tab.

Samus waited for the Spartans to pick up the weapons on the table, stow away the grenades on the table, and get ready to leave before opening the door behind her. She led the way out of the small underground labyrinth, and above ground.


	14. Chapter 7 Of Ships

Ooooh, a big, gigantic creative block has decided to sit firmly on my writing capabilities…so it might be more then two weeks before I add the next chapter.

Eight Page, suckers! If you have enough time to waste reading this, you have enough to stop by and say hi in a review and tell me basically what you do and do not like.

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**0630 Hours, August 31, 2552 (Military Calendar)**

**Unknown Star System, Choujin colony on the surface of Ulj'koji**

Therein, she led the group to a landing platform. It was really just a plain strip of barren dirt that was had an area of a two square kilometers. This was on the outskirts of the forest. Within a minute a small black spot appeared in the sky. Slowly, it grew larger as the ship descended into the lower atmosphere of Ulj'koji. The ship landed, it wasn't really that large. It took up half of the landing strip.

However, it was large enough for all the Spartans and Samus to man. It was just over eighty feet in height, it took a roughly curved triangular shape that had a dome like structure on the top There were several rotating jets on the bottom of the ship and two coiled blue areas on the back of the ship. On the sides they could barely be make out several pulse laser turrets. It landed softly on the ground; the dirt was barely disturbed in the process.

Samus stared incredulously at the ship. She was surprised that a small vessel like this had survived. Sure, her old ship Choujin built, but this was full-fledged fight worthy. It could go up against two pirate destroyers and _win_. She hadn't thought that the Choujin, even in their completely advanced colonies, had any of _these_ lying around. This ship had to be old, older then old, antique even. One of these small frigates shouldn't have been built in centuries. They had _only_ been used in the era of the Choujin history that was predominated by defending against a bellicose race. She was in awe, not only that they were giving this to her, but that it still worked. She hoped it was as good as she had heard that it was.

She had stayed still, taking in the ship. Adam stood in his ease position, looking at the ship, just as shocked as Samus, but his dark green holographic eyes remained unchanged. Cortana just examined it, looking it up in the small database that she had been provided with. It wasn't even hinted at. The Spartans watched it land, waiting for something to happen. The ship was sleek, they wondered just what this ship was capable of, just looking at what the Choujin could do to their weapons.

A door opened on the side of the ship. All attention of the group focused on it. The door seemed to fall down, liked it had been knocked down. But on a second glance it hadn't. The door had be designed to fall like that so that the occupants could walk down the ramp it formed for the three foot rise the door's bottom formed above the ground.

Several men jogged down the ramp with the heavy thud of military steps. They raised their guns up, and cleared the area, "Its all clear, ma'am!" One of them shouted back into the ship. A human figure walked down the ramp, her footsteps light and quick. Her hair was silvered and she looked aged, her skin was also very pale. She quickly glanced around the area, and spotted the Spartans. She walked over to them.

"John, Fred, Kelly, Linda and everyone else, its good to see you."

A chorus of ma'ams and doctors were voiced. They snapped her a quick salute and then stood at a slight ease. Samus watched, taking several steps back. She decided to let this play out itself, they seemed to know this woman and respected her as well.

She noticed a movement, and saw four of the ghosts from before float their way over. They didn't wait for the customary bowing to take place before speaking. Samus knew something was seriously wrong if that had happened.

_Ah, Samus. We see that you haven't left yet. That is good. I have something to tell you. _The ghost that appeared to be speaking was the one that was known as Idama.

«Seeing one? What is it?»

_A vision. I know not all the details. They remain unclear to me. As does the meaning to the Honored Elders._

Samus felt her patience drain, the Choujin had an insane ability to make their speech as tedious as it was confusing and long. This was seen especially when it was something of great importance. She felt she would never understand this. «Well, what did you see?»

_A creature, it was bulbous, mottled, green, I believe. I know not what it is, or its significance, but there was an unusually perturbing aura surrounding it. I believe that it has some meaning to your mission. Be careful. I believe it to be more dangerous then a metroid._

«More dangerous then a metroid, huh? I'll keep that in mind. My thanks.»

_The honored elders here wished us to bade you that a few more weapons and several crates of ammunition have been transported onto the ship. The Choujin of Set'usui put the ship on auto-pilot the moment they entered the system._

The ghost bowed to her, she replied with a curt nod. Samus had understood the reasoning behind the Set'usuian Choujin's decision not to come closer then the outer edge of the system to Ulj'koji. While all Choujin equally respected and cared for each other, even those not on the same planet, due to Choujin belief that they were all connected in spirit, there had always been a little friction between the Choujin of colonies like Set'usui and the Choujin colonies like those on Igu'nami and Ulj'koji. So they avoided each other most of the time to keep from flaring the little friction more then need be.

The doctor had noticed the ghosts the moment the foreign language had appeared in the air. The military soldiers had snapped their guns at the intruders, but had stopped, frozen. What were these things? They were transparent, but existent. They stood, lapsed in confusion. Some unease had rose within the newcomers when Samus had turned to face them. She looked no more human then a Covenant, and she hadn't even spoken English before.

Samus was torn, she wanted to ask one of the USNC officers before her if they knew about the creature Idama had described. However, at the exact same time, she knew they had to hurry and continue on their way before the Covenant left the system they were going to head to.

"The engineers have definitely put what they think should be enough ammunition aboard the ship's weapon locker, along with some more weapons. That's what they told me. We should get going."

Samus led the way into the ship, followed by Adam. When the doctor looked towards the Chief he shrugged and allowed her to enter the ship first before him. After John walked into the ship, his Spartans filed in as well after Cortana. Then the marines that had been picked up by the Choujin followed them.

As Samus walked into the bridge of the ship she saw another human standing there. He looked old and was wearing a captain's uniform. He had loose short graying black hair. He looked up as the group entered the room and everyone except Samus snapped to attention.

Samus watched the captain carefully and took note that he was standing directly in front of the controls. She took a step forward, "You need to move."

"Excuse me, son?"

Samus shook her head, "This isn't a human ship, you don't know how to fly it, I do. And we're leaving this planet, now."

"Just who are you?"

"I'm a bounty hunter. Those who know call me Hunter Aran. Most just say Hunter. I don't care what you like to say. Now let me to the controls."

"I see, Aran." The captain looked up to the Chief and then doctor Hasley, "Should we trust him?"

The doctor shrugged and thumbed towards John, "He does."

It was then that Adam stepped forward, or rather floated forward on the hovering metal disc that projected his display, "My name is Adam Malkovich. You'll have to excuse Samus. What's your name?"

"Keyes, Captain Keyes."

Adam nodded, "I'm based off of an old captain that was KIA. Samus has been contracted to assist that one," He pointed to the Master Chief, "on his mission. Would you mind moving so we can get going?"

Keyes nodded at Adam and moved to the side. Aran pulled Adam's AI data chip from the disc and it fell to the floor. She inserted in a slot just below the holographic control panels. "Adam?" She called out a split second later.

His hologram appeared beside her, "Right here. I have the coordinates. ETA is five hours." The hologram disappeared.

Samus moved away from the control panels and looked at the Master Chief, "There's a second slot for your AI next to the one I put Adam's in. Don't touch the control panels. I need to look into this ship."

"Wait." Samus stopped barely half a meter from another door leaving the bridge. She looked back at Keyes, "I have some questions for you."

Samus rolled her eyes, "And they are?"

"You said you were a bounty hunter. What did you mean by that?"

"Yeah!" A Marine shouted, "Bounty hunters are illegal."

"Adam or the Master Chief can explain most of everything to you. But I'll tell you this. I'm an elite hunter. I get hired by the government to do the jobs that the military is too scared to do. I get all the tough stuff. I do jobs that no one else will take. And I do them quickly," with that she left.

Keyes looked over to John, "What did he mean by that, Chief?"

"Sir, it's hard to explain. But apparently Aran is from another government that appeared while Reach fell."

"Go on."


	15. Chapter 7 Of Ships 2

In the distant star system to which the traveling group of Covenant searchers were going a different sort of confrontation was going on. The Covenant had been planning on touching down on the surface of the ring nearly seven hours previous, however, a snag had formed in their plan. That snag happened to be twelve of the pirate ships, eleven of their battle cruisers and a small research vessel. The ships had just formed in front of the Covenant. After the initial transmission, initiated by the pirates, there had been radio silence for the past while. The transmission had been fairly simple in the despised human tongue, "Surrender." All ships were silent in space, guns charged and aimed at the strange others. 

On the lead ship there happened to be one of the Prophets the Master Chief had been sent after. It was a minor prophet, but it would decide what to do with these new pirates. The Ship Master Orna 'Fulsamee waited for his orders on dealing with the pirates while ordering the ship to come ahead of the other eleven Covenant ships. It had been in the back while the preparations for landing had gone on, but now was no time for landing procedures.

'Fulsamee read a series of projections that had appeared in front of him. The Ship Master was normally unaccompanied on the bridge, buried deep in the Covenant ships, standing on the platform that was held up by interwoven opposing gravity beams. Several holographic projects floated in front of him and he scanned what they said. The first panel displayed the ring world the separated the ships of the different races. There were several small arrows near the ring world that marked all of the pirate ships. Another projection simple read Unknown Vessels, Majority class T-II, Minority class Z-I. A third readout displayed what the sensors picked up from the ships. They were far beyond human reach _that_ was certain.

"Exalted, they appear to not be human. Fighting them would prove a very high amount of casualties," 'Fulsamee addressed the extremely decorated being that wafted in the air next to him, swathed in red and gold and wearing a tall ornate headpiece with amber panels. It had a long serpentine neck, triangular head and small beady eyes.

"We think it wise to communicate with them." A lower ranking elite spoke up near 'Fulsamee. He was Bako 'Ikapormee, and his tendency to use the royal "we" while speaking for the prophet greatly annoyed 'Fulsamee.

"Their last transmission was very clear, Exalted. They will expect our surrender if we open communication with them." The Ship Master had no intention of surrendering. That held fewer honors then dying, besides Covenant never surrendered.

'Ikapormee took a while before responding, "We do not wish for the relic of the ancients to be damaged, Ship Master. Communicate with them, if they still do not come to reason, move away from the relic. It must not be harmed."

'Fulsamee felt chagrined and irritated. Not only was the ring world right between the two forces, he would have to run somewhere else if the other ships would not come to reason. He clicked his lower mandibles, the elite's version of a shrug. He sent the order for there to be a communication line between his ship and the ship that had sent the message before. Another holographic panel opened up in front of the Ship Master. It was of a Space Pirate's face and the bridge of a pirate ship.

While all that had been going on in the Covenant armada, in the leading pirate ship something else entirely was going on. A large Space Pirate that had the shape and size of a dragon sat on its haunches in the bridge, located at the center of the ship. His name was Ridley, or rather Andra Ridley. Ridley was a bio-electronic clone enhanced and based off of his original form. He had been remade several times, each time dying by Samus's hands.

Right now the circuits in his brain were considering the Covenant ships in front of him. He had been reading over the data that had been retrieved from probes about the ships. They had plasma weapons which were indicative of the Chozo. Yet he knew that they weren't from the Chozo because they were an extinct race. The only one he knew of with Chozo technology was Samus herself.

He didn't know how to deal with them, they were obviously a life he wasn't familiar with, however, they were still a threat to his kind's conquering of the galaxy, so he only wanted their surrender, destruction, or alliance. The first one was the simplest to deal with because it would allow him to forget about them. Destruction took time, as it was proved many times over with the Federation. Alliances could be useful, but were generally not wanted. He waited for their response almost patiently. He had no care for the relic of the ancients that was in front of him and was perfectly content in destroying it.

He took the time waiting to judge the Covenant. Given the fact that the plasma cannons on all of their ships were charged and ready to fire and the way they were taking their time to respond, he decided that they were a proud race and wouldn't surrender. They were also definitely not human. However their actually deciding to talk to him surprised the veteran pirate. Ridley had half been expecting them to open fire any minute.

A metal bar scrolled out from the panel beside him and then another pole slid out vertically from the horizontal one and then two more bars appeared horizontally from the vertical one to make a rectangle without a side. A blank holographic screen appeared in the rectangle.

"Master Ridley, they're trying to communicate."

"Let them."

The hologram changed to the inside of the Covenant bridge, staring directly at 'Fulsamee. Ridley awaited for them to speak first.

In his ship, Ship Master 'Fulsamee paused for a moment staring at the holographic projection of Ridley's face. If these creatures only spoke the human language communication would be difficult. To his rescue 'Ikapormee spoke, "We would like to communicate with the strangers, Ship Master." 'Fulsamee stepped down away from the screen and allowed the prophet and 'Ikapormee to step up.

"As you wish, Exalted."

On his side Ridley quickly considered the strange barking alien tongue that the Covenant spoke. He didn't understand a word of it, nor the movement of the aliens. He barked an order behind himself, "Activate the translators."

There was a small hum as the bars glowed a strange green color as his order was fulfilled. On the Covenant screen the left, bottom, and top part of the screen gained a strange green coloration. The Covenant prophet leaned his head closer to the screen to examine the strange android closer. Minor prophets were never usually in charge of communications with other races beside humans, but he had been given orders from High Charity to take care of it. When he was done with Ridley his beady eyes fixed upon the strange green glow.

"We ask about that glow, stranger."

"That's a translator since we don't speak the same language. I ask about your surrender."

"We cannot."

"Hmm." Ridley took a moment to think. If they would not surrender, would they work with him instead? His thoughts were broken by 'Ikapormee speaking up.

"What race are you? We haven't run into you your kind yet."

"I'm a Space Pirate. What about you?"

"Covenant."

"And that shriveled being floating next to you?"

The Ship Master spoke up, unable to take that comment about the Holy One, "That's a Holy Prophet. Don't speak so lowly of him, or you'll find yourself dead."

"We thank you for your defense, Ship Master, but please, restrain yourself. We are all Covenant on this ship."

Once more, 'Fulsamme found himself clicking his lower mandibles and took to silence.

"A Prophet, eh?" Ridley said as he thought to himself, 'Must be their leader.' "Well, here's the deal. Since you won't surrender, either ally yourselves with us and help us take care of the humans in the galaxy, or we will destroy you." Ridley took to an unnerving menacing silence after issuing his ultimatum.

The prophet's eyes gleamed excitedly. So they wished to be rid of the humans as well. He would send a message about this to High Charity at once, but it took no thought. "Agreed." 'Ikapormee told Ridley not even a second later, "We will help you with eradicating the human scum."

"Glad to hear it. Now, what is this ring in front of us?"

"That is a relic of the ancients."

"What is that exactly?"


	16. Chapter 8 Of Takeoffs

Hello, suckers...I mean valued readers. I'm back with more of this story. Now that I'm pleasantly working on the more action-packed, gripping, and exciting chapters, one or two a head of what's online, I should be back to my regular updates. And by regular I mean weekly or biweekly. It takes a long time to write high-quality (pffft) lengthy chapters.

So be patient and enjoy these next seven pages. (nearly 3,000 words)

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**1134 Hours, August 31, 2552 (Military Calendar)**

**Unknown Star System, Exiting atmosphere of Ulj'koji**

Samus had made her way to nearly the back of the ship in a few minutes. She called out, "Hey, Adam?"

The AI's hologram appeared instantly next to her and floated next to her as she walked. "Yes, Lady?"

"How many other humans were aboard this ship?"

Adam paused a moment before answering, "The logs say fifty, that's a good force to operate this ship. From what I heard many of them were at this Reach and suddenly found themselves on the surface of another planet. I think this may or may not work to our advantage."

"I hope that it does. Now then, do we have any drop ships?"

"Twelve, Lady. They are held in the back, they're very similar to the gunner ship you originally had. There are also enough quarters for everyone on board." After a moment's lapse he spoke again, "The captain is requesting your presence."

Samus nodded, sighed, and turned around. Exploring the ship would have to wait. Adam's hologram disappeared. Within a few minutes she was back at the bridge. She turned her helmed head towards Keyes and stared blankly at him. All attention on the bridge of the ship turned towards her. Including the three Spartans: John, Linda and Fred.

"You asked for me?" She said coolly. She looked around at the marines that were present on the bridge. Many of them had tattoos on their arms and gold comets on their clothes for their group symbol. Samus raised an eyebrow at them, they were muscle-bound and irritable looking.

"Yes I did."

"I don't think I need to ask this, but what's the reason?" She leaned against a wall, examining the captain and then moved her glance back to the tattooed marines. There was something unsettling about them. She used her scanner to get so information about them. The scanner told her that they were Orbital Shock Drop Troopers, ODST or Helljumpers, the 105th.

"I thought I'd introduce you to the Special Force's leader we have, Major Silva."

Samus quirked an eyebrow and looked over at the Major. She watched him vacantly and could sense the irritation nearly rolling off his form. After a moment's stare down she decided to comment.

"Silva, huh? Well, what's your particular problem?"

Silva scowled furiously at Samus. What had she meant by that? The few Spartans in the room, Dr. Hasley and Keyes all looked at her as well. Samus pursed her lips before continuing. Adam's hologram appeared behind them and looked inquisitively at her.

"You don't trust me. I can tell that much. I'd like to know why," she paused and then added in the sarcastic, "_Major._" Adam smiled, the reason why was beyond the rest of the people on the bridge. The Spartans winced a little at the last remark by Samus, it contradicted their protocols to listen to that.

"Because you're another fancy armored freak."

This elicited a small smile and a bemused query. Samus was quite used to being called a freak, or even a myth, "_Another?_"

Silva nodded, "Yes, like the Spartans."

Doctor Hasley and the three Spartans bristled at varying intensities at the remark. Doctor Hasley scowled, John tensed, Kelly crossed her arms, and Fred narrowed his eyes. However Samus was the first to make a move towards Silva.

"Alright, Silva, I'm going to tell you something you might not know. Spartan-117 and myself have been cleared for tactical command of this mission, by two admirals." Samus frowned, "That means as long as you're on this ship you listen to me and him. Along with Adam, Keyes, and anyone else they say." She waited a moment for her words to sink in, "Is that crystal clear?"

Silva nodded, "Yes, sir."

"Now let me make one more thing equally clear," She leaned forward so that she was on eye level with the Major, set her shoulders, and made sure that he could see her expression clearly. That expression was one of anger. Her tone suddenly became clipped, "Until I say otherwise you're to keep such asinine remarks to yourself. Understood?"

"Yes, sir." Silva said a bit quieter then before. Mainly because the cannon she wielded started to charge a small amount of energy and he didn't think it boded that well for him.

"Good."

The Spartans stared at Samus. What had brought that on? Dr. Hasley looked at her approvingly. Samus turned to face the doctor. Keyes was impressed, no one could get an ODST Major to even back down in the slightest like she had. When Samus spoke again all previous anger was forgotten and she spoke amiably.

"You're a doctor, I presume?"

"Yes."

"Good, I'll show you to the medical bay. Something tells me that we're going to need it." With that she keyed the bridge door open and looked back into the room at Adam. She tilted her head towards the Major, and beckoned the doctor to follow her. Dr Hasley looked back at the Spartans then followed Samus out of the room. The door sealed behind her.

"Ah, Major Silva, there's something that needs to be done. I've got to worry about other ship processes, so I'd like you to take care of it," Adam gestured to a data pad lying near one of the control panels, "Please, take that and head towards the shuttle bays."

The Major nodded, saluted at the AI and walked out of the door. Keyes turned towards him, "What was that?"

Cortana appeared near the captain, "Inventory, sir. I thought I gave you that information a while ago though."

Adam shrugged, "I felt like giving him something meaningless and irritating. Oh, ETA four hours forty-five minutes." With that he disappeared.

The doors opened to the cool medical lab. It was fashioned in the same manner as the medical dome on Ulj'koji. Twenty beds line the walls, a tall pillar was in the center. It was circled by four curved benches, one meter above the ground. Wires dangled above the benches. Behind the benches and the beds were partitioned diagnostic panels. The doctor looked around at them all, and then at the task desk to one side of the room.

Hasley walked over to the desk and sat down. She ran her hands over the small bump at the front of the desk. The metal hump warmed and a hologram appeared above it. The hologram was a monotone orange hue. A screen appeared in the center, the Choujin text quickly transitioned to flawless English, courtesy of Adam.

Adam appeared in the center of the room, "Hello, Doctor Hasley." He turned towards Samus, "You called, Lady?"

"Yeah, could you show the doctor the ins and outs of her new medical lab in a few minutes when I call?"

"Of course, Lady." Adam said before disappearing.

The doctor looked over at Samus, she had mistaken Samus for a male, as had the rest of the UNSC troops that had seen her. The way Adam talked to Samus confused Hasley. This matter was cleared up when Samus flipped open a panel on the underside of her left arm. She pressed a button and motes of light raced along the suit to remove it. It disappeared with an audible click as the tiny orbs returned to their origin.

Samus brushed a few bangs from her face and pulled the glove off of her left hand. The clinging blue material snapped and swung back in forth in her right fingers for a few moments before being dropped onto one of the benches. Samus sat on one of the benches and looked over at the doctor.

"There's a procedure I need to get done today. But I can't access the controls."

Doctor Hasley nodded. She stood up and walked over to Samus, "What's the procedure?"

"I've got a cybernetic implant in my left wrist. The implant isn't fully attuned to my skeletal and muscular structure," Samus raised the arm and let the wrist fall limp. There was a small bulge were the joint bent, "So it starts to shrink around my wrist and cut of blood supply. It was made for Choujin body structures, and they weren't able to fully adjust it. Once a year I need it to be re-expanded so I don't loose the only hand I can use while in my suit."

The section three doctor nodded. Helping Samus would give her better insight into her new medical facilities at the least. "So, how is this done?"

Samus laid on her stomach on the bench. She had her left forearm pressed against a metal panel on the side of the bench. "There should be a control to activate this thing over there...it's amber colored."

The doctor walked over the holographic control panel Samus had pointed out. When she got over there she noticed something about all of the buttons, "They're all amber colored."

Samus winced. She had forgotten the generic color of Chozo holograms that were used on these ships. "It's got three circles at the points of a triangular outline, inside it is a square with a curling line."

The doctor quickly looked over the buttons before pressing the correct one. The panel Samus's forearm was pressed against jumped up so it was level with the rest of the "bench". All of the buttons turned a green shade, except for one. "Now press the one that's not glowing."

When that was done several squirming cables fell down from the ceiling. They gathered over Samus's wrist. Samus felt the skin chill until she couldn't feel it. She couldn't resist the shiver that crept down her spine as the skin continued to lower in temperature. Then she felt the skin over her wrist be incised in a perforated pattern. The fingers of Samus's right hand tapped patiently as the procedure continued. Although the nerves in her skin had been chilled, they still functioned under that. She felt things moving around under her skin and sliding over the surface of the implant. It wasn't comfortable.

Samus was careful not to budge her arm even a millimeter as she looked over to the doctor. Hasley was staring inquisitively at the wriggling wires. Samus stared upwards at the origin for the wires in the ceilings and let out a small sigh. This process would take several minutes.

"Hey, Adam, you can show the doctor around now. This will take a while." Samus remembered the first time this had happened to her. It was when the implant had been put in, and she had wanted to pull the wires from her wrist. Now that this had happened so much, she didn't want to. She knew what was happening to her, and it didn't feel remotely painful. However, she felt frozen all over. She shivered as more of the chilling substance was added to keep her nerves from sending out pain signals.

"Lady?"

"Just cold, Adam. That's all."

The AI nodded, understanding what Samus meant by that. Adam pointed out the diagnostic displays on the walls of the room, and all of the control panels. He explained them to Hasley.

While Adam was in the middle of his explanation John came into the medical center. Doctor Hasley and the AI looked over at him. Samus strained her neck to look behind herself and failed miserably to see the noncom.

"Doctor, Captain Keyes wanted to talk to you on the bridge immediately."

Adam shrugged as the doctor turned towards him, "This can wait until afterwards. I'll just assume it's important." With that his holographic form faded out of the room as he busied himself with the ship's operations. Doctor Hasley briskly walked out of the room.

Samus strained her neck to look back at the Spartan while trying not to move her left arm. Eventually she just gave up on the task, she hadn't been able to catch a glimpse of the MJOLNIR armor that he wore. She drummed her fingers on the top of the bench she was resting on for half a beat. Then she spoke.

"Hey, Chief."

The Master Chief nodded, and then realized that she probably wasn't able to see the action, "Samus." He looked up towards the cables that had surrounded her left wrist and hand. They were gleaming, silver, an inch thick, and squirming. "What are those?"

"Mhm?" Samus tried to look back at him again before realizing that she couldn't and then at the wires, "Oh, just a medical procedure I need to get done once a year, it takes about fifteen minutes..." Just as she said that she felt the skin heat, smelling something burning before immense amounts of pain. Then the wires made an opening just large enough for her hand. Samus pulled the extremity out and looked down at it. A dotted line of furious red marks traced along the paler skin of her wrist. She sat up and laid it down on her lap.

"So, Chief, what brings you here?" she paused turning to look at him and spoke up again before he could point out the obvious, "And by that I mean; why didn't you leave when Doctor Hasley did?"

"Cortana said that I should look around the ship."

"There's not much to see in a medical center unless you're a doctor." She pointed out, standing up and replacing her glove. She stretched out the limb as the formfitting fabric snapped into place and then wriggled her fingers. The pink symbol on the back of her hand lit up momentarily before becoming a dull pink-gray once more. With the support of the taut fabric, her limp wrist felt better to use. She pressed a button on the implant. Milliseconds later she mouthed agony as the motes of light flew around her, forming her power suit.

"Are you alright?"

Samus's mouth formed into a tight line, "Yes, I just shouldn't have formed my suit so soon after finishing with that is all." Fire burned from her wrist all the way to her shoulder. "So like I said, there isn't much to look around at in a medical center."

"I don't understand the language of anything written on the ship."

"Oh, you want my help, is that it?" She walked towards the door, "Alright then, come on."

Aran gave the Master Chief a grand tour of the ship. Samus was surprised when they reached one of the three loading bays. It was huge, but that wasn't what shocked her. Samus stepped down the stairs, looking over the entire bay in awe. Every available inch was filled. Not only were there four high quality drop ships that could give cover fire to almost anyone, there were a few training simulators to allow the rest of the ship crew to learn the basics of control over the ships. There were racks of weaponry, shelves of ammunition, portable recharge stations for Samus, and a variety of other things.

Samus let out a low and appreciative whistle. She hadn't been expecting all of _this_ to be on the ship. She walked over to the nearest ship and ran a hand over it. Her scanner showed it to be in perfect condition, along with everything else in the room. She inspected all the weapons, carefully made sure that all their pieces were in functioning order and put them back on their rack. She looked over the portable recharge stations.

It was physically impossible to carry one of the two hundred pound monsters with them, but when leaving a drop ship they could leave one of them activated in a nearby location. The stations could only be unlocked and used by Samus's suit. The alloy it was made from was practically unbreakable. Also, it used an energy system similar in nature to the packs on the Spartan's armor. Samus grinned, there were, by her count, ten of them. This would allow them much easier movement if they were to be dropped before landing in hidden areas marked on her HUD. They could also be easily picked up.

If they needed to land the stations would be convenient. But when they were infiltrating a ship, they would only be extraneous.

Samus decided that she had seen enough of the area for the moment and turned to find the Master Chief and leave. She began to cavort her way over, checked the motion and sauntered over to his position.

"Chief, we need to get going, there's more of the ship to show you." The chief nodded and left the ship. Then Samus opened a line with the ship's AI, "Adam?"

Cortana's hologram appeared instead of Adam's, "Yes, Samus?"

"Oh, Cortana. Could you get a few of the crew to come here and have them use the flight sims? We'll need some people to man the drop ships."

"Of course. Do you want any of the Spartans to learn the ship controls as well, Chief?"

"Yes." Cortana disappeared; soon her voice was heard listing names of the humans on the ship to learn how to fly a drop ship. Samus and the Chief left the room.

By the time Samus had finished showing the Chief around the ship Adam activated the speakers in her helmet, "Lady, the ETA is now ten minutes. Could you please come to the bridge? There are a few minor problems that we could encounter with our arrival."

Samus was confused, but heard her speakers click off and knew not to question him. She relayed the news to the Chief who hadn't been able to hear the message. "Okay, we'll be in system in ten minutes. Let's go to the bridge."

On the way up, Samus got some information from Cortana. She learned that of the twenty people called down to the bay, nineteen of them had learned how to fly a ship. The only one left was a Sergeant Johnson.


	17. Chapter 9 Of Landings

Well, a new chapter. Sorry for the lack of regular updates with the holidays and all. I kind of rushed the last page or so. Hope I didn't screw it up, however. I just wanted to get the update out today, so I could begin normality again. I know, I should be shot for that.

Enjoy and stuff like that. Also, what would a Halo/Metroid crossover be without Halo?

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**1640 Hours, August 31, 2552 (Military Calendar)**

**Chozo Frigate _Migration_, location unknown**

Samus stepped coolly onto the bridge. She looked around to see who was there. Captain Keyes was on the bridge out of habit. Adam's hologram projected itself near the command console. Cortana was pacing with a certain air of irritation. The Chief walked in behind her. The doors hissed shut behind him. Samus felt a solemn air close itself about her.

She half-glided half-walked to the command console. Her fingers slid over the keypad with expertise. She would occasionally press down a view buttons that would activate certain holographic panels around the command console. Something nagged at the back of her mind as she scanned the data that poured in front of her in Chozo shorthand.

Adam had mentioned there could be some small problems with their arrival. She had felt as if the bottom had been burned out of her stomach after being filled with lead, boiling hot lead. She loathed and dreaded those words. Small glitches always became huge complications that increased her mission time nearly 300. She had known that something would happen the moment the admiral had told her this would be relatively easy. "Easy" missions always had "small glitches".

Samus looked for the source of the minor problems. She found it the moment she stroked in the command to see a screen of their arrival area. It was positively teeming with activity. There were the familiar Pirate ships, and the new unfamiliar Covenant ships. Small drop ships were relaying something from the surface of the ring she had seen in the Chozo laboratory to the ships and going from the surface. She really was tempted to find out what had both races so interested in the ring world.

She pushed back the desire and read over the small caches of signals they were able to discreetly intercept at this distance. She looked at the Choujin time stamp at the bottom of the video signal, converted the figures to human time, and found it to be minutes old.

"Okay, that could be a problem. There's a lot of ships in the area...I doubt we'd be able to take over a ship discreetly. Our only advantage is that the metal of this ship absorbs any type of radar signal at any angle." Samus thought aloud, hoping to make a quick and easy way to figure out the situation.

"What are they doing?" Keyes asked.

Samus enlarged an area of the image of the giant ring. She peered and thought back to previous pirate encounters, to make sense of it. "I think they'll be setting up shop down there." 'Which means,' Samus thought with a start, 'Which means there is something extremely important to them down there. What is it?'

Samus immediately entered commands into the control console. The holopanel that displayed their trajectory went blank for a moment. Then it reappeared with a different flight path. It went around behind the nearby gas planet, dropped them into a tight orbit just below the finest layer of gas on the opposite side of the planet from the ring, and then they went into a stationary keeping position near the ring. Samus wanted to observe what they were doing. This would also allow her time to formulate a plan to hopefully finish the mission quick and easy.

Adam and Cortana looked at the new flight path, and made minor corrective alterations to it. The modifications would increase both their stealth and the ship's safety. Keyes looked at it questioningly, and John approved of the idea. He knew this would buy them thinking time, something he was rarely able to get when he needed it. And they needed it now.

"So," 'Ikapormee began, "We are curious, what is this substance you are sending down to the surface? You mentioned that it was called Phazon."

Ridley made a shrugging motion by spreading his wings out a foot each and refolding them. "Think of it as food for our troops. It is mainly for our heavy weapon specialists."

"Surely, you don't intend to fight us."

"Perhaps. But that is not their reason for being down there. Call it insurance. There is a female galactic bounty hunter that happens to come on our operations and stop them many times because we do not keep our vigilance up at all times."

"Just one?" The prophet had asked for him, "We question your strength, Ridley."

"Don't. This bio-form Samus Aran has technology that was built by an ancient race, probably even more advanced then what you currently have. It's hard to reverse-engineer any of her equipment. And she proves increasingly difficult to try and capture so we could acquire her suit."

"Send us information on this Samus." Within moments the data on Samus appeared in another holopanel near the prophet. His small head leered over the screen and read the data, he was impressed by her skill level, recorded power, and definitely her powered suit. "It _would_ be a boon to capture her suit. So you believe she might attack us here?"

"With that one, we've never been careful enough." Ridley was handed a data pad, he read over the information and threw it in the direction it had come from, there was a shattering sound seconds later. "That might be her now." Ridley stood up, it took the camera directed on him a moment to adjust itself to look at his face, "I'll be needing to join my troops on this Halo regardless."

With that Ridley reached over a clawed hand and smacked the general area of the turn off switch. The metallic bars collapsed into each other and slid back into the apparatus they had come from.

The Pirate Commander lumbered through the large doorways, nearly trampling any other lesser pirate that got underfoot. Soon he was faced with the doorway of the exit bay. It would open in five minutes to allow more troops and supplies to be taken to the surface. His bio-mechanic body was able to survive the vacuum of space with a metallic hide, a special polymer under the armor that would keep his internal wiring warm and there was no need to breath.

Ridley flew out of the bay the moment it opened. As soon as he was in the void he stretched his wings, probably a thirty-meter span, and silently roared. He flexed a cold metal tail, pressed his arms to his side and flew towards the surface of the ring.

Samus waited impatiently for the ship to arrive in position. It had been several minutes since they had entered the Threshold system. Under Adam's guidance the ship had been lead to the large gas planet. When Basis's shadow passed over the _Migration_ the fleet of alien ships began to come into view. All noise on the bridge stopped, everyone counted the ships as they appeared. There were twenty-four in total.

In seconds the planet's rotation brought them into position. Samus felt the ship stop underneath her. The engines had issued a small burst of energy after their five-minute silence. After that they continued emitting micro bursts to continually correct the position of the ship. Samus hoped the aliens wouldn't catch on. They were far too close to Threshold to engage all the ships. There were several seconds after getting into position that if the sensors just happened to scan around the ship, it would show a disturbance. Samus was relieved to see that no attention seemed to be fixed on them.

Samus activated the scanners and took time to look at the ring world the aliens were so interested in. It was huge, ten thousand kilometers in diameter and twenty-two kilometers thick. The outside of the ring was metallic, seeming to be engraved with ornate and complex designs. The inside had mountains, storms, hurricanes, oceans, forests, and glaciers. Keyes let out a low whistle as Samus zoomed in on the surface of the planet. Everyone was impressed at the massive size of the ring. Samus thought it was beautiful, but it made her gut instincts flare for danger.

Cortana used a long-range low frequency scanner to scrutinize the structure. They were too far to use any scientific scanners while remaining hidden. "The structure doesn't seem natural from what I gather. Almost all tests are inconclusive, but I don't think it was Covenant made."

Samus added in a comment, "I don't think it's Chozo or Pirate make either..." That left some races Samus knew of that had that level of technology. One that stood out in her mind; it was a bellicose race that attacked the Chozo on numerous occasions. This ship in particular had been designed to defend against them. But they had disappeared a long time ago without warning or trace.

She examined other data that flew across the screen, the types of ships, how battle capable they were, and any scraps of transmissions they could intercept. The data passed too quickly for her to read it properly, but she saw something about Elites, the pirate kind. She wondered how many Elites were on the surface on Halo.

Then something caught her attention. She quickly read it and the corner of her mouth twitched. Her insides boiled. The text had only mentioned Ridley briefly, but it was enough to anger her.

She changed the focus of the camera from the inside of the ring world and to the Pirate ships. There. A glimmer caught her attention, it was not the form of a Pirate drop ship, and it was too far out to be anything else. She shrank the field of view to focus on the glimmer. She caught the form of Andra Ridley as he roared.

Ridley's gleaming orange eyes focused and scrutinized the area of the gas giant mentioned in the data report. The ships had sensed a disturbance in the fine, outermost layer of gas on the planet. He could see it using the magnification power of his mechanized eyes. He saw glimmer of a metallic hull, or something large and metallic.

He roared. He used jet propulsions on the back of his wings to fly towards the planet.

Samus noticed him getting closer. She intercepted a radio signal that came from Ridley.

"It seems that we do have an interloper. Men, be prepared for anything."

«C'jinlor,» Samus muttered. She flipped on a speaker, "Everyone, you just might want to find a nice, safe, strapped in place to sit in. In the near future."

"Why?" John immediately asked, "What is that thing?"

"That's Ridley, the leader of the Space Pirates. I've killed him several times by now, but just they keep replicating him. He's spotted us, hopefully he won't notice us, but just in case, they should buckle up. You should too." Samus watched the android carefully, inspecting his every motion, and trying to predict his next move. She heard the others on the bridge move towards a secure location.

The mechanical monster roared once more, but this time energy gathered around his maw. As his jaws began to close, the energy beam shot out, almost like a Covenant plasma ray in destructive power, but was milliseconds slower.

"Shouldn't we move, Lady?"

"That's what he wants us to do. But the shields..." Samus wasn't thinking that the shields couldn't take the blow, they definitely could. However, they had this particular effect of rippling and glowing when taking a hit. That would give them away as well. "Just wait, and don't do anything. Maybe if we don't move, he won't see them from here. Or he'll miss." She just hoped that the shields, after all this time, were still working.

The beam hit the ship, nearly centered on the top hull. The shields worked, rippled, and glowed. Ridley roared silently in satisfaction. He used a radio to signal towards the object of interest.

Samus almost groaned as the sensors indicated scanner activity from the other ships all over them. She bit on the inside of her cheek as she thought. The first thing was, 'The universe just doesn't like me.' Then a plan began to formulate. "Adam, could you do something for me?" She noticed that the beams were beginning to charge on the ships of both races.

"Yes, Lady?"

"When they begin to fire, move us towards that thing...I don't think that they'd continue to fire at us. The Pirates are interested in it, so they won't want to destroy the thing. Just move towards the edge on the Covenant side of the ring."

"And the Covenant?"

"I don't think they will fire at us either."

"_Think_?" The Captain echoed.

"Yes. Besides, that seems like a much better option then sitting here and letting them fire at us...Unless, of course, you've got something better."

"No."

With that the conversation was abruptly cut off with sudden motion from the ship. The plasma beams followed the _Migration_ as it moved through space. Several ionized energy beams shot after them with much less precision from the Pirate ships, although it was still irritatingly accurate. Irritating to everyone onboard the _Migration_, that is.

Shortly there after, the shields took the blows from deployed Seraphs. The ship dodged many of the blows while still maintaining a large forward velocity. The larger Pirate and Covenant ships stopped firing at the _Migration_ when it got within forty kilometers of Halo. Ridley came around from one side of the ring and fired his mouth beam at the ship. The shields took the blows and continued to work. Samus pursed her lips after noticing that the Covenant plasma beams had given them glancing blows several times.

The shields weren't able to suffer much more abuse. The overload came when Ridley fired another powerful energy beam at them.

The shields gave out and plasma fired rained on the hull.

«C'jinlor» "We need to land." She said as a side comment for the benefit of the other people. With the help of Cortana she managed to pilot the ship in at an angle appropriate to land on the surface of the ring. Samus just hoped it wasn't teeming with Pirates, Covenant, or strange foreign life.

Adam took care of making sure that most of the atmosphere in the ship didn't vent outside.

As the ship came in, the metal keel heated, front end turning a shade of red. When it got closer to the surface the bottom brushed against trees and broke several of them that were hundreds of years old. The ship pulled up and flew off towards some point, eclipsed from scanner. Then it landed vertically in a clearing and was immediately shrouded by trees.

One of the Spartans, Fred, made a side comment to another Spartan, "There's been worse landings for us." He had felt the gees of the harsh and rushed landing, and felt the ship tremble under each hit after the shields had given.

All the other Spartan could do was nod.


	18. Chapter 10 Of Decisions

Hey guys, sorry that I'm a week behind schedule. I nearly didn't make it this week. I've barely had four hours to write all together since the last time. And these chapters are long. This one's a bit shorter though.

But that's because the scenario after this would take a while to write out, a few chapters, and I wanted to start fresh for it. Oh, and my apologies if I just seem to be filling space with worthless information for the past several chapters...I've just been trying to figure out how to go about doing exactly what I want to do with this. Anyways, enjoy. The rest I nearly know by heart.

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**1700 Hours, August 31, 2552 (Military Calendar)**

**Chozo Frigate _Migration_, surface of the ring**

Samus groaned as she took in the ship's functions. All that was left was the ability to blanket all types of energy signals. The shields were shot, and couldn't be put back up for an hour. The Covenant ships had managed to strike an engine when the shields had gone down. Ridley had blown a hole in the side; it had vented some of its atmosphere before being sealed with a temporary force field. Not to mention the sudden friction of the landing coupled with the angle that had nearly vaporized them had fried half the outer systems that were left. There were other nicks, and fires spreading across the hull, frying several circuits. The ship's repair systems were dousing the flames at the moment. However, the ship wouldn't be space worthy for days.

She was glad that it could cloak itself; the ship was huge, and hard to hide without notice or preparation. Fortunately, she had managed, with Cortana's help, not to crash nose first into the ground and pull up in a way that would hopefully fool their enemies into thinking that the ship had vaporized on impact. However, she wasn't surprised that the _Migration_ had survived the sudden entry and attack that would had destroyed anything else. She had long since learned to stop being surprised by the efficiency and durability of something that was Chozo made.

"Adam, do me a favor. Divide all ship functions besides the bare necessities to cloaking us, and repairing the ship."

Keyes stood up from where he was, half thrown out of his seat. "So, what happened?"

"Apparently, the Pirates or Covenant managed to spot us before we were fully hidden in orbit around Threshold. When Ridley attacked, I had no choice but to move out of the way."

"No, not that. I know all that. I'm asking about when we landed. Why weren't they all over us?"

Samus sighed, and leaned back against the console, left hand carefully placed to balance her, but not strike any unwanted keys. "Because, we came in at a steep angle, fast, and injured. They probably thought the entry vaporized us. Or, at least I hope they did."

"And if they didn't?"

"I'd put our survival odds at low."

Cortana appeared next to the Captain in hologram form, "I thought the admiral said this would be a relatively easy mission for you." Her tone hinted that perhaps Samus wasn't as good as the admiral had suggested.

"So-called easy missions are only that. My last "easy" mission nearly killed me." She continued the thought in her head, 'Sure, "It'll be easy, Samus. Just parade around with the B. S. L., baby-sit them on the planet were Metroid were first spotted and we don't know if they're all dead yet. Then please go to their space station where the parasitic freak show that nearly killed you on Zebes freaked out while you're still half-dead, and please don't destroy the metroid we're secretly cloning." Easy, yeah right.' Only the first part of that had been easy, the heads had said the other part would be challenging, which it had been.

Samus closed her eyes and took a deep breath. No matter how harrowing, irritating, or dangerous that had been, this couldn't be worse. Even if this one had the usual "easy mission" escape before the place where you're standing on blows up in a few minutes. There was no way it could be worse. Then again, the Chozo had warned her about something here. But even so, it wouldn't help her at all to get angry about the past; it never did anything but make things worse. Besides, nothing could be worse then the X-Parasite.

She turned away from their stares and idly read the low-energy, masked scans that came in. The atmosphere was breathable. There didn't seem to be signs of any native fauna to create dangers. There wasn't much else the computer could tell her, with most of its processes being taken up by repairs. Fortunately, Adam wasn't the computer, but he probably wouldn't be able to get much else.

"Hey, Adam, could you get anything else out of the scanners?"

"No. Sorry, Samus."

"Whatever." Samus thought. Should she go outside? Should she explore this place? It was probably safer inside, but she had been asked to destroy this place. It was a threat to existence. Not to mention, being stuck inside a ship for a week, staring at forests and scans of a world not even a kilometer below her, would drive Samus crazy.

She hated space, and she hated ships or stations. She loved the feel of actual solid ground beneath her with real gravity. There was nothing fake or artificial; no threat of hull breech or being sucked off into space. There was just the ground, Samus, her enemy, and the rules of the land. Despite the complications the ground-based missions could cause, the fact that she spent half of her life in space, and the lack of a very easy escape.

"So when do we leave?"

Samus turned her attention to John, "Not for a while. The energy flow to half the engines is gone, half of the circuits in the hull are gone, there's a hull breech and the entry angle nearly blew out our power supply in the strain to keep the hull cool. We have to let the ship make repairs."

"And how long will that take?"

"A few days, maybe, at most a week."

"And we let the Covenant get away?"

Samus turned back to the screen, typing in several codes. "Not necessarily. The Covenant have taken quite an interest in this place. We intercepted a lot of their broadcasts before being discovered. They seem to be settling down here for about that length of time, maybe a little longer. Whatever it is, it's interested the Pirates."

The Chief had walked forward to get a better look at the scripts flowing past the screen. He turned his mirror visor towards Samus, seeming to ask what her point was.

Samus didn't even turn her head to notice the gesture. She felt it, eyes turning from blue to green. "That means it's probably either very dangerous for Galactic safety, or some ancient advanced technology that they want, to use against the Galactic Federation. That's what they usually only care about. Whatever it is, they probably shouldn't get their hands on it. At the very least, we should get ready to blow this thing when we leave and get that ship."

John understood. They were stuck here, on this ship, on a ring world they knew very little about. There was something an enemy race wanted on this world. Whatever it was, if they got a hold of it, it probably wouldn't be anything good for them. So instead of sitting here and doing nothing, it would be a lot better if they explored. If they could find out the reason of interest and find it before the Covenant or Pirates did, they might be able to use it against them. And if they couldn't use it, they could just blow it up, and hopefully some of the Covenant and Pirate troops on Halo. Besides, sitting still and doing absolutely nothing didn't go over well with him.

"Alright." John tensed, and began to turn towards Captain Keyes. No matter what the admiral said, it just did not sit well with him to not get Keyes's permission first. The older officer shrugged, he knew that the admiral had placed Samus and John in command; it wasn't like he could complain. He wasn't the C.O. of those two.

Samus nodded and turned towards the view screen. "Adam, could I get an image of this ring?" A pop up window was displayed and took up half of the screen. Samus manually changed the angle and zoom of the image. It re-rendered itself using data that the scanners had collected before to try and make up for the lack of data.

The image displayed a vague patch of green that blended into blue and small blobs of gray that were blended into the gradient of dark and lighter greens. It was all very hard to make out. Even Chozo technology had its limitations. Samus had the window shrunk and pulled up some intercepted data. The translators aboard the ship had easily turned the alien languages into English. She double checked some figures and then had target symbols placed over some of the gray blobs.

"There seems to be a little Pirate and Covenant activity along here. I think we could find out something useful. It's about a thousand kilometers in radius though. We should probably break up into three groups to explore." Samus was all for exploring by herself, it couldn't be a lot more dangerous then exploring by herself on Talon IV. However, for once she could use backup since it was there. Although she loved the solitude it provided her, going by herself meant she never had anything or anyone to rely on if she needed a second.

The Master Chief nodded and divided his Spartans and Samus into three groups of seven. Cortana sent the order files to the Spartans HUD's. The Spartans quickly broke into their groups; grabbed two weapons each, some ammunition and grenades. They double-timed it towards the drop ships.

"Captain Keyes?" Samus said as she turned to slide in the communication chip the ship gave her to take so she could talk to Adam. "Could you tell Major Silva to take some of his men to that point? I'll have Adam program a drop ship with the flight path." She handed the Master Chief a communication chip for Cortana, he plugged it into his armor. He felt nothing, not the usual cold feeling when she entered his head, just nothing. But he _felt_ her presence there in the back of his mind.

"Hello, Chief." She said to let him know for sure that she was there.

"What's the point?"

"Something of interest. I want them to bring it back."

She walked out of the bridge, and John followed her. They made their way towards the bay where the other Spartans were.

"So, which group am I in?"

"Green Team."

Samus made no response, the paneled doors opened automatically as they came near. She made her way towards the gun rack. "Take what you need." She picked up a small device, and placed it on her left hip, it was barely noticeable as it's smart adhesive stuck to the metal.

"What's that?"

"A communication transceiver, so I can talk to Adam and everyone else on an encrypted line." She tossed him one of the many devices. He opted to place it on his right gauntlet. It was a tiny thin disk of plastic that camouflaged very well on the MJOLNIR VI armor.

Samus grabbed nineteen of them and headed towards the group of Spartans that had been standing there for a minute. The Master Chief followed behind her.

When they got to the group Samus distributed the transceivers to the other Spartans. "Put these on your armor, they'll allow you a free communication line with everyone else and the ship that can't be understood by the enemy."

The Spartans followed the command, she was officially their superior and John hadn't tried to stop them. They all attached it to the part of their armor on the back of their right forearm.

Adam's voice came in through the speakers in the bay. "Teams, go to one of the hovering ships and enter. There have been directions programmed in, but someone will need to fly it."

The Master Chief took over after that, "Fred, you're in charge of Red Team. Blue Team, come with me." He walked off towards one of the ships; six other Spartans followed him. Another group of seven Spartans went towards another ship. Samus stood and looked at the remaining six Spartans.

"Presumably you're all on green team." The made no response and Samus walked towards the remaining hovering ship. "I guess I'm in charge then." Samus leapt into the gravity beam that drew her into the belly of the ship. The six Spartans followed her example.

Samus sat down in the chair, using her left hand to enter a key code into the arm cannon. In condensed, nearly completely into the armor of the limb. Once all the Spartans were in six of the fourteen seats of the drop ship and buckled in; Samus flew them out of the opening door of the ship.

When Blue team was inside their drop ship, John turned to look at another Spartan. "Kelly, you completed the flight training."

Kelly didn't pause, and didn't sound confused as to why he asked her that, although she was. "Yes, sir."

"Then you fly." Kelly nodded and dropped into the seat, which didn't conform to her MJOLNIR armor. The seat had been designed for the powered-suit of a Chozo warrior. She shifted a little to get a better seat.

The other Spartans sat down into the other seats, clustered together. Kelly eased the ship up and out of the bay. She picked up a little speed to get them to their drop area quicker, but also trying not to crash the ship. A flight simulator didn't handle the same way a real ship did.

Red Team's drop ship followed the other two ships. While they were still within a kilometer of each other, Samus used the new device to send a message.

"I've had the Chozo AI group us by our teams, so if we want to we can talk to our team mates at any time. Also, if another team is within a kilometer, we'll be alerted and can send a message to them. The drop ships can send messages to the other teams when we're out on the field as well."

The Spartans sent out a green affirmative light towards Samus. Her suit mimicked the green blips on the outer edges of her HUD. She temporarily saw shadows of the blips for a second.

Kelly landed Blue team towards the outer edge of their landing zone, taking advantage of the cliffs in the area to hide it. Red Team landed in a cave near a waterfall.

As green team came towards their landing area, Samus used the drop ship's transporter to teleport one of the portable recharge stations to the surface, and marked the location in her armor's temporary memory. They landed, and jumped out of the hole in the belly of the ship one at a time.

John landed on the ground first, motion tracker only painting the yellow dots of his teammates. He cleared the area with his rifle and stood to the side, letting the other Spartans out.


	19. Chapter 11 Of Explorations

Hello, I bring no good tidings, just more story. Oh, if you noticed the huge jump in the number of the chapters, it's because I broke each chapter into one to three sections to make their length more manageable. The Chapters are still 5+ pages in length, however, the parts are only like 3-5 pages (I don't break them up if they're less then eight pages though), simply because people might find it too much to read at once.

Chapters will only be added in their entirety, not as sections. However still, I will be very meticulous and ending each section with as nasty a cliffhanger as I can manage. Enjoy.

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**1800 Hours, August 31, 2552 (Military Calendar)**

**Surface of the ring, 300 kilometers from Migration**

Samus whirled; her radar had shown something on its very edges, the smallest sliver of an orange dot. She scanned the area, eyes darting towards its location; it would have to be right over that hill. Unfortunately, the hill was quite a way off from their position. All forms were indistinct, and it would take too long to go up and check. If they had been spotted it was too late by now.

There was a slight sound and a small object zoomed past Samus towards the hill. Samus watched the bullet. At the top of the hill there was a plume of fiery explosion. Samus saw for a brief moment the vague humanoid shape of one of the Covenant. She believed that the information interceptions identified them as Sangheili.

Samus turned her head, feeling a form of satisfaction coming from directly behind her. She saw one of the Spartans, a little shorter then the rest, putting her sniper rifle into a holding position.

"That was you?"

"Yes, sir."

Samus ignored the honorific and simply lifted a hand to press a few controls near the hatch of the drop ship. The red keel sprang to life, the sleek hull turning into small scales that rippled with energy, showing them on infrared momentarily before they cooled. The small red scales during that split second turned various shades before taking on the exact appearance of the forest. The only flaw in the camo was a faint shimmer around the edges. Really, the only way to find the transport vehicle would be to walk straight into it.

"Okay, then they shouldn't be able to tell we're here, if that's the only one that spotted us. Hopefully, he didn't raise an alarm." Samus shut off the external speakers of her suit.

"From now on, use the communication devices to talk." She knew that the Pirates had probably already taken anti-her measures. Making more noise then necessary would definitely set off the Pirate traps. Actually, any unusual energy would suffice in that task. She didn't know what the Covenant had done, but she wasn't in the mood to trust them being completely ignorant about her.

She heard small barely audible clicks as the speakers for the other Spartans shut off. The devices would pick up their suit's vibrations from their voice and relay it to them if the user of the suit had opened a channel to talk.

Samus waved them to follow her towards the hill since there weren't many other places to pick from. She made use of the trees and boulders as she climbed to hide. The Spartans followed her lead, hiding in the shadows. She waved them to a halt as she heard the whining of the engines of Air Troopers come near them at the base of the hill. A nervous second later, the Pirates had passed overhead. They had apparently spotted the fallen body and were off to investigate its cause.

Samus stopped in her climb. The nearest shadow up was a meter off. She readied herself and sprinted across the gap, black armor gleaming in sunlight.

John dove headfirst into the protective cover of a boulder. Plasma fire rained after him and all over his cover. He looked to see if any of the other Spartans were nearby. He saw Kelly, dodging the fire while running towards the attackers. She used all the possible cover she could get on the way up, moving fast enough that they didn't spot her. To his right two Spartans clustered behind a break in the cliff face. John waved his hand towards Kelly.

He had given the fastest Spartan the order to rush at the enemy while being as careful as she could. John had distracted the enemy from Kelly by diving into his current position. He lifted his gun, took a breath and whipped around out of his cover. His assault rifle rained bullets on the enemy. The other two Spartans followed suit, giving Kelly some cover fire to distract them from her approaching figure.

They had run headlong into a group of five Pirate troopers and five Sangheili. Kelly had a shotgun along with an assault rifle and was an immediate candidate for taking care of the Pirates; the rain of explosions should, as Cortana had calmly informed him, take care of their armor and make them easier targets for the Pirates. The only problem was that the shotgun required the user to be closer then normal, especially for the full force of the upgrade. Cortana had said being within two feet would be sufficient for the impact of the explosions to weaken the armor enough for the others.

The other Spartans heard the retaliation fire and came out of their individual coverings, guns blazing. The six Spartans managed, after a few seconds of continuous trained fire, to overload the shields of two of the elites and kill them.

John just barely ducked in time to have some of shots from the Pirates to go right over his helmet, missing by centimeters. He checked his shields, found that they had dropped by half and had to remind himself to be more careful. The shields were tougher, but he wasn't invulnerable. The other Spartans ducked to avoid fire.

The group shifted, finding new cover. They avoided detection by the aliens, who were jumping behind random pieces of rubble and opening fire onto nothing.

The Spartans reopened fire on the aliens from their new hiding spots. John saw Kelly duck out from behind a boulder, spinning around it silently as a Pirate whirled around the corner to fire where she had been but a mere second before.

It spotted her to its side, a fraction of a second too late. She lifted the barrel of the assault rifle to face its head and pulled the trigger. Kelly let the kickback carry her backwards half a foot. The fragments of her attack landed on their mark, neatly clustered around the Pirate's head and exploded on contact.

Kelly ducked somewhere else nearby, hiding as the aliens rained fire on the boulder next to her. The Pirate staggered back, the force of the explosion had barely damaged it, but the pressure had blinded his helmet. It fired wildly. John trained his fire on the Pirate, being more careful to move slightly to avoid a fresh assault on his position. He hit the dirt hard as a plasma grenade sailed over where his head would have been. And crawled behind a boulder.

Samus crouched low as she made her way forward, the tip of her arm cannon dragging along the grass as she climbed towards the ridge of the hill. She told the other members of green team to hold back as she made her way out of the shadows. She peered over the hill, looking into the shallow valley below. She noticed a rock just a little below her that would mask her from the aliens below. It would be close enough for her to hear what they were saying.

She skirted over the peak of the hill, down the slop and careened into a sudden stop. She pressed the back of her armor against the rock and listened. From the glimpse she had caught earlier the base directly behind her was teeming with alien activity.

The base was tall, as they had rose up the hill the tips of the prongs of the top of the base had come into view as more then just scenery. From the base of the prongs located at the top of the two-story building a great beam of light was fired to the other side of the ring every few seconds from what Samus was able to gather. There were two walls that covered two of the corners of the building, but otherwise it was open to attack.

She could hear the thrusters of the Pirate Air Troopers flying around. A variety of Pirates ran around the base. Covenant were scattered among the pirate troops in equal numbers. Samus wanted to see what was going on, but focused on listening to what she could hear.

She caught bits and pieces of the conversation. The Pirates conversed about the possibility of Samus hunting them, given that she had probably survived the attack. The Covenant talked in some kind of code. The Sangheili were ordering the Unggoy scattered around doing grunt work. Other Sangheili talked while pressing in controls.

She couldn't make sense of what they said. They were talking about the weapon, a cartographer, truth, and reconciliation. She caught other bits of information that could prove useful eventually.

Samus tried to restrain herself from flinching as she heard footsteps approach her position. Then she noticed there were quite a few people, and their movement was slow and labored. She decided to risk sending out a request to a team member.

"What's going on?" She whispered. She knew that the aliens couldn't hear her in any case, but the energy signal would be lower with a quieter voice.

In response, a Spartan darted from out of their shadows along the back of the ridge. The armored figure hid behind a tree and clambered up a rock. A matte black barrel stuck itself between the branches. It was the same Spartan that had shot the enemy that had nearly spotted them.

Her voice cut through to Samus's armor in a second. "They're carrying something, sir. A couple of those new aliens are at one end and some Elites at the other. There are some of the Covenant Engineers flanking it. They seem to be inspecting it."

There was a loud thud as the thing, whatever it was, was dropped onto the ground. Samus frowned at the noise. She heard some excited noises from behind her, the Covenant were shouting out to some newcomers.

"Okay, look," Samus paused doing some calculations and continued, "five degrees to my left. What's going on there?"

The barrel moved, training onto a new target, "Covenant, sir, six of them and a flying creature. A black armored elite is talking to them and..." She stopped as Samus groaned. "Sir?"

"Everyone, hide. Now." The matte barrel disappeared into the foliage. Samus caught the faint sound as Linda jumped down from the rock onto the grass.

Samus looked around for a good place to hide. She was way out in the open from this position. She noticed to her left was another boulder, not far from her current position. Between the rock and a cliff was a tree. It would provide great cover, but the lowest branches of the trees were a meter off the ground and there wasn't much more room width wise.

No time to look for something else. Samus heard the whine of the Air Troopers as they came back from their ship's area. She leapt towards the cover, a flash of metallic black for the smallest fraction of a second. Samus curled up, armor converting to Morph Ball Mode, pine needles scratching against the smooth metallic surface. Her breathing became deep, but ragged from the small cramped position. She flicked her finger against a button and the lights on the side panels of her armor flickered off.

The sound of the Air Trooper's engines flared overhead, energy attacks raining down at the ground.


	20. Chapter 11 Of Explorations 2

The sound of the Air Trooper's engines flared overhead, energy attacks raining down at the ground. Kelly dived to avoid the attack, a few orbs spraying over her armor, knocking the shields down. She swore inside her helmet, this newcomer had waylaid her attacks for several seconds, along with the other one a constant rain of fire was on her. She turned on the comm. device, "Chief, I need that thing taken care of." 

A flurry of glowing purple needles flew over Kelly. They hit the air trooper, half of them burying into the chinks in the armor, the rest pinged off harmlessly. The needles exploded in electric fury. The trooper was barely affected inside its armor, there had barely been any damage to it. But its warning system flashed, the needles that had hit had given such a shock that the systems had been overloaded.

The Trooper, in a last ditch kamikaze attack, turned head over heal and spun wildly at Kelly. Smoke trailed behind it as the suit overloaded itself to become a large-scale bomb. Kelly dodged the attack, the edges of the wave of the explosion not even catching her heels. She turned her head around just in time to see another wave of electrified needles catch the other air trooper and destroy it.

Then the soldier whirled; bringing her shotgun's barrel to face a Pirate looming behind her. She brought the muzzle up to the middle of its head, shoved the barrel forward and fired. A torrent of exploding frags hit it, nearly immediately after coming out of the mouth. The Pirate staggered back from the blow and Kelly ducked to her right, bringing the gun close to her as she rolled to avoid incoming fire.

The Spartans busied themselves with the remaining pirate and elite. Both went down quickly. The Pirate's frontal armor had been weakened severely by Kelly's attack. Kelly switched weapons, not wanting to take the time to reload her weapon. She brought the assault rifle up and fired regular rounds into the Pirate.

Both enemies collapsed to the ground. The Spartan group gathered together.

"Where did that flying alien come from?"

"I don't know. They might have a base nearby. It will be best if we stay as stealthy as we can from now on." John signaled the Spartans to switch off their speakers. They did so.

"Let's move." He said and waved the group onwards.

The Spartans stuck close together as they moved onwards. The Chief told Kelly to scout out ahead of them. She continuously darted ahead of the group by several meters, and darted back, visually signaling that the path was clear. Progress was slow and arduous as they carefully made their way forward, wary of the flying pirates.

Soon they stumbled upon a nest of alien activity. Kelly told the group to wait up as they came closer to a turn in the rock wall. When she reported back seconds later she gave some news that the Chief was barely able to believe.

"When I got close to the turn, sir, my long range radar picked up a lot of enemies."

"Alright. Everyone stay back here and hidden until I say otherwise." The Spartans disappeared into the trees, vanishing like ghosts. Then they disappeared from his motion detector, as they remained motionless.

He walked over to where Kelly had been and crouched on the ground. John took an optical cable out and gingerly fed it around the corner. He plugged the wire's feed into his HUD. There were many enemies around the bend, the only way they could continue forward. John wanted to minimize contact with the aliens as much as possible.

He twisted the cable, and got a view of something. The Pirates had a large pod hovering above the ground, it was roughly twice his height and two and half times again his breadth. The pod was being moved by a latticework of crossing gravitational beams that the Covenant controlled. His bones reverberated as the pod was dropped gingerly to the ground. Whatever was in the pod must have been extraordinarily heavy.

The Covenant took the device that had been rolling along the sides of the pod carrying it and walked off to do some other business. The Pirates stayed however. There was a giant tank near the pod's landing location, and there were lengthy and thick serpentine cables near them. The Pirates hooked the cables to various valves at the bottom of the pod. The cables stiffened and turned a shade of blue.

John swiveled the probe about, rotating it to look at other things. Then he noticed the large area that was bustling with alien activity. There were a lot more of the large pods hooked to cables attached to the humming tanks, four at most. John could only guess what was going on inside the tanks and the pods. He focused the probe on one of the pods that gleamed sunlight similar to glass.

The probe zoomed into 2x magnification and he tried to make out the shape of the shadowy figure in the pod. Its arms were crossed in front of it, hands pointing up. The figure floated carelessly in the liquid of the tanks, eyes closed in a deep sleep. It had a shape similar to that of a pirate, but it was more ruggedly built, had larger muscles, and different armor. It was also massive, nearly taking up all of the room inside the cryostatis pod.

John tried to compose himself as fear raced across his brain. The strange armored creatures that were more massive then himself that he had met on Sigmus Octanus IV were not that huge. The blue armored, orange skinned Covenant had nearly killed one of his squad members. They had only defeated it by knocking the floor out under them. This thing was probably seven times it mass and more then quadruple it's size.

'_Relax_,' He told himself, '_That thing's frozen_.' He carefully pulled the probe back, able to tell that his heart was still beating nervously. He couldn't hold back the thought of what would happen if one of those things woke up. He detached the probe and stored it. Still crouched, the Chief backed away from the cliff and sprinted back cautiously through the forest to his team. He managed to control his apprehension by the time he got back. So long as they were asleep, those monstrosities would be no threat.

"Sir, what's going on around there?"

John walked past Kelly, "We're pulling out; this area is too hot."

The Spartans followed the Master Chief as he walked out of the area. He knew that his Spartans could take on all the normal enemies with the element of surprise, but he did not want to risk waking the beasts to get more information. He was definitely going to ask Samus about the giants when he spoke to her again.

Slowly, they made their way back, a lot slower and more carefully then when they had come forward. When they had come back to the area where they had originally fought the pirates the area was hot again. The Master Chief peered at the group of Grunts and Jackals that were looking around the area, there was also one of the Elites.

He made a couple of hand signs to three of the Spartans; they disappeared into the trees. They would be back up incase there were more of the enemies in hiding, such as those Air Troopers. They would not attack unless the Chief told them to or surprises popped up. He told the other Spartans to disperse among the foliage and appear at his signal. With the Pirates now in the situation, it wasn't too prudent to take some care in their movements.

John picked up a nearby rock and dropped it onto the ground. The sound didn't bother the aliens, none of them even noticed. However, the Spartans in hiding recognized the signal. A second after the sound, the armored soldiers went to action, still hidden. Two of them picked out the grunts with single shots from their pistols. The Jackals whirled around, putting up their shields. The Spartans behind them head shot two of the Kig-yar.

Several of the Jackals turned around to face the direction of the new onslaught. The elites hollered at them. The Spartan's translation software gave them the rough gist of the orders. They knew that as the Jackals moved, they were forming a tight circle to block incoming fire. The Elites waved plasma rifles and needlers around the area, looking for the assailants.

A grenade flew from a crag in the rocks and then there was movement from all the hiding places. It landed among the Jackals: bounded off the ground an inch, landed, rattled, and blew. The frag grenade's explosive range instantly killed the Jackals as they began to roll to avoid its engulfing flare.

The elites growled at the attack, firing at the source of the grenade. Chief gave Kelly a signal, and she sprinted into action. John and the other two Spartans opened fire on the elite closest to the Spartan. It's shields flared, flickered, and died under their cover fire. Then they switch to the other elite, suppressing the counter strike it was sure to give.

Kelly moved with celerity, jumping out behind the elite, catching it off guard. With as much strength and speed as she could muster, she slammed the butt of her assault rifle into the Sangheili's head. Then she tumbled to the side, avoiding a frontal assault from the second elite that still managed one last attack before it, too, died.

John heard the whine of Pirate Air Troopers as they came towards them. John waved the group forward. The Air Troopers would take another minute to get there. By that time, the Spartans would be gone. As the seconds trickled by, the whine became louder.

Until it was directly overhead. Samus had been curled up in Morph Ball for nearly a minute by now. She felt her limbs spasm for want of movement. The Chozo warrior controlled her breathing, making sure to keep it deep and slow. She opened her blue eyes to scan at the projected screen that had made its way between her face and her thighs. It emulated her HUD. She watched the radar movement in the lower right corner of the green screen.

Very slowly the overhead orange dots moved away from her position. Samus allowed herself a slow breath of relief. She kept the lighting on the side panels off as she allowed the micro-cameras all over the surface of the Morph Ball to guide her, the views smoothly transitioning from one camera to the next as the ball rotated forward. Soon she was over the ridge of the hill. Samus paused only a moment to make sure that nothing had spotted her, certainly none of the aliens made a scene about it.

Samus gyrated over towards the rocks halfway down the hill, turned back to normal and crawled all halfway back up from her current position. Then she risked opening a squad-wide channel.

"Okay, guys. I think I heard enough down there."

"You understood what they were saying?"

"Certainly, the Pirates at least." That was a lie and Samus knew it. However she did not want to go into little details like why she understood the Covenant without ever having heard their dialect before.

She continued, "Anyways, as much as I'd love to go down there and kill all the pirate scum... that would totally blow our cover and the fact that we're not dead. That's not an image I want to break just yet."

Then a comm. line broke over their channel, "This is Red Team." Fred's voice broke over the line, "Charlie Team just sent us an S.O.S...apparently they were found out by the Covenant, and they're having a hard time. There was a loud earthquake sound just before the transmission cut off. Requesting orders?"

Samus grumbled to herself, 'Although it seems it's been broken for me.' Instead of voicing that thought she spoke over the line while waving the team away from the ridge and back towards the ship. "Chief, you there?"

There was a moment's pause before he responded, "Yes."

"I don't trust marines with loud thudding noises...do you?"

"No."

"Okay, let's go see what's going on down there."

"Red Team, we'll meet you half a kilometer south of the original S.O.S. signal."

"Yes, sir."


	21. Chapter 12 Of Scarabs

Hello guys. No, I don't suppose loud thuds and anything go well together...

* * *

**1845 Hours, August 31, 2552 (Military Calendar)**

**Surface of the ring, 450 kilometers from _Migration_**

The Spartan drop ships congregated within minutes. The three drop ships continued forward half a klick before touching down. Samus set Green Team's into camo mode, the ship instantly disappeared to sight and sensors. Kelly and Fred copied the actions, their drop ships becoming invisible as well.

They maintained all forms of silence, making gestures to each other as they headed towards the transmitter. They felt the vibrations before they were half a klick from it. They were dull, but still present. As they got closer they heard the sounds of a mechanized walker.

The group came to a large clearing, several square kilometers. The area was hot, many aliens were running around the area. They were firing at targets that Samus couldn't discern. Several Air Troopers swarmed the air. Whatever was going on her, Samus didn't like it. It wasn't hard to spot the source of the vibrations; it was a huge walker, a Covenant firing platform. It had four large legs and was several stories high. Every time one leg lifted and moved the thing forward, there was an earthquake like vibration.

Samus looked around for the Marines, hoping that they weren't too late. As much as she didn't appreciate the ODST's, she didn't want them to be dead under her watch either. She looked at a cluster of alien activity on the opposite side from the platform.

Samus tapped Linda's shoulder and pointed towards the Covenant horde. Linda scoped the area out. "The marines, sir, several wounded. The Pirates are keeping the Covenant back. One of the Pirates is holding something, it's round and black. The Pirate is...protecting it, sir."

Samus nodded. "Alright. We need to get that thing from the Pirates. It's imperative that the Pirates or Covenant don't get to keep it. It's an ancient destructive technology of the Chozo that fell off before when the atmosphere vented off one of the floors as we entered. There was no alien activity here before so I was hoping they could get it back." Samus beat herself over the head for her own stupidity. She was not used to commanding men that had no suit protection. Normally she'd get it back herself, to hell with the amounts of Pirates that showed up. They couldn't kill her even when she wasn't wearing her suit.

But these marines were different, weaker. Without standard Galactic suits for their protection, it was even more difficult for them. A squad of Galactic troopers could have gotten it quickly with minimum troubles, but these Marines were different. She had to make sure that they didn't die from her own foolishness.

"How do you suggest going about that?"

"I could get their attention. But you should have some better ideas." Samus realized that John was probably used to commanding many men and knew how to plan a strategy better. She would rely on him for tactics when in large groups.

John realized she was telling him to order the Spartans as he pleased. He made some hand gestures to the ones with sniper rifles, and they ran to different areas to take sniping positions. He motioned for the others to wait for further orders. With a little luck, he figured they could get that thing and the marines before the Scarab came over.

In three seconds three green lights winked on John and Samus's HUD. John blinked his green light twice, and Covenant fell. The first round had four down. Two happened so fast that John didn't know which one of her two targets Linda had picked first. A moment later four more fell. Then the remaining Covenant fell in twos. The living aliens looked around, trying to find the attackers, but couldn't. The sniper bullets left no trail. They moved around, but still fell. The Pirates brought their weapons to fire at the humans.

A Pirate commander grabbed at a human's hair, pulling it. "Where is she? Where is Samus?"

The human grunted, "I don't know who that is."

"Worthless scum! Samus is here. Where is she?"

"I told you already, I don't know who Samus is."

The Pirate snarled and let the human go. Blood traced from his scalp where the skin had been torn. He had a cracked rib and was already in a lot of pain. The Pirate was getting irritated with these men. He had never seen such weak human fighters before. Federation men always gave them at least a miniature amount of trouble. These men had been easy to crush and prevent from getting the Oculus.

The Covenant Elites were impatiently moving their plasma rifles and needlers. They were growing tired of waiting to kill the humans. The Elites couldn't understand the Pirate leader's interest in them.

Then four of the Covenant fell. The aliens ignored the humans to look for the attacker. There was no trace of the people that had slain four of the group.

Then four more fell. And then two at a time until the Elites lay on the ground, blue blood spilling from headshots. The bullets fell nearly harmlessly off the Pirates' armor, only giving them a little pain. The Pirate turned towards his comrade, the one with the Oculus.

"Take that to safety. Master Ridley will be pleased to hear we have captured it from Samus."

Then the Major Pirate turned towards the humans gathered before him. He raised his gun to fire at them, but didn't as he heard an explosion behind him. He turned and saw the Pirate that had turned to leave the area with the Oculus fall to the ground. The black orb fell to the ground, no dust showed on its surface and nothing about it shone. From the explosion Samus walked out, followed by four Spartans.

"Samus!" The Pirate said her name as if it was a curse.

Samus said nothing as she raised her gun, energy charging at the tip. The Pirate shot at her. She rolled to avoid it, and energy from the Spartans rained on him. Then he felt something hot hit his side. Samus had blasted him with her half charged Plasma beam. The plasma splattered off his side, and the suit burned as it's inner atmosphere ignited. The metal melted and he was incinerated.

"Watch out!" A marine shouted as Samus stood up. She felt it; they were telling her to watch out. She instinctively rolled to the side, but a bit too late. Two bolts of green plasma hit her in the back. Their combined force made Samus staggered forwards as she side was motion continued. Samus winced and whirled around to face the enemy. The last of the plasma splattered off her back.

Samus checked her shields; the blows had taken seven tanks of energy out of twenty. She growled, her current tank was at fifteen. She looked to see her attacker. A pair of lumbering blue aliens stood before her. They had large spines on their back. They were a little taller then her and twice her size otherwise. They crouched behind a thick alloy plate that mimicked the shields of ancient knights. Their right arm was consumed by a cannon. Plasma gathered at the maw of the weapon as they aimed for her.

She activated the scanning feature of her visor and locked onto one of them. She moved to avoid the next set of blows. The small loading bar that had appeared in the middle of her visor finished and a text box appeared on the visor. She moved as she read the text.

**Morphology: Hunter (Lekgolo)**

**Attack in pairs of two. A Hunter is comprised of a small colony of orange eels that move under one consciousness. They have no shielding to speak of. The Hunter's right arm has been replaced by a powerful plasma cannon call a "Fuel Rod". The Hunter has no relative weak spot, aside from the bared flesh in their armor at the "head" and the "torso". They protect this area from a frontal assault by their armor-plated shield, comprised of a material similar to benzeium.**

**Recommended that you use morph ball to get behind the Hunter and attack it from behind in the weak spot with a powerful weapon.**


	22. Chapter 12 Of Scarabs 2

Samus returned to her combat visor. So the Covenant could come up with something that could actually be a threat on their field units. That was not a good sign for an actual easy mission. Which Samus would have preferred after that last one, but she knew that she wouldn't get one after the rough start. 

The Spartans stared at Samus, wondering if she was really there. They had seen the destructive force of the Hunters' fuel rod. It was not pleasant, and had nearly killed one of their men. Yet Samus took the beating as if it was almost nothing.

Samus got a running start, and jumped. Her calves glowed blue as a small anti-gravity burst came from the Space Boots augmentation to her armor. She cleared the Hunter pair by a few meters and landed behind them. They were slow to turn, too slow. Samus raised her arm cannon and fired the Chozo beam rapidly into the glowing orange section of it's back.

She stopped when her target had left. The tip of the cannon smoked. Samus pursed her lips as she dodged the arcing plasma. Both stood, but the Hunter she had injured had a pool of orange blood around it that would have led to the death of anything. How it was still standing was beyond Samus.

The Spartans used their weapons to attack the Hunters while Samus distracted them. The Spartans used the explosive mode of their MA5B's to kill them. The Hunters collapsed after a few seconds of continuous fire.

The bounty hunter sighed as she noticed that she had gone down another tank from being near the plasma blasts as they exploded. She turned towards the marines.

"Can you walk?"

The Marines struggled to stand. "Yes, sir."

"Where's your drop ship?"

"Half a klick that way, sir." They pointed in a relative eastern direction.

Samus paused to consider, a split second but she needed to think. There could be more alien activity on the way back. The marines could get killed, and if she sent the Oculus with them, that was the end of that. But could she send some Spartans with them? She might need them here. But no matter what, they had to go. That huge firing platform was coming towards them and she didn't think it would give them a happy greeting.

John had come up to the group. He had heard the conversation and decided to give an order. "Take them to their drop ship, one of you fly it back."

"Yes, sir!" the four Spartans helped the wounded marines back.

Samus picked up the black sphere, "Take this with you. Make sure nothing happens to it."

A free Spartan grabbed the sphere and then the group left. Samus grew annoyed with herself; she should at least be able to give at least a command like that. She shrugged the feeling off and turned to face the Scarab that was advancing towards them in unison with the Master Chief.

Samus switched to her scanner, and locked onto the vehicle.

**Machine: Covenant Scarab**

**The Scarab is a Covenant firing platform. Alloy is indestructible by common means, including the flame thrower addition to your Beam Cannon. Has an unusually low melting point for such a durable machine. However, no amount of concussive force will destroy it or shake the Scarab from its course.**

**The Scarab can allow up to fifty units a safe firing platform from ground infantry. The Scarab itself has two main weapons. A charge energy capacitor designed for ground units and an energy machine gun.**

**At the center of the belly appears to be a grappling point. There are two seams that give off magnetic force and run up to the platform of the Scarab. The Scarab relies on the firing power of the units on it to destroy flying opponents and ones on its side or back. Can be knocked down from a strong downwards force from directly above the platform.**

Samus noticed that a ring of fire had been started around the clearing, and cut the area Samus, John, ten other Spartans, and the Scarab off from all escape. It would take several minutes for the drop ships to come from a remote signal.

She turned towards the Master Chief and ran. She opened a line with the other Spartans, "Whoever can snipe...take care of some of the units standing on the Scarab."

"You have an idea?" John asked.

"Yes." Samus pointed towards a motionless Covenant vehicle. It was a large purple shape. An Elite was running towards it. Samus shot it with a plasma beam. "Can you drive that thing?"

John knew a little about Covenant technology, it was called a ghost.

"Yes."

"Good. Think you can drive that under the Scarab?"

"What's your plan?"

They came up to the Ghost and John hoped in to drive the vehicle. Samus jumped on one of the wings, it groaned under her weight, and listed a little to the side. The Master Chief easily compensated for the change and they accelerated towards the Scarab.

"I'm going to get to the top of that thing and kill the driver."

"By yourself?"

"Something you should know about Space Hunters. We work by ourselves, usually without any form of backup. Besides, there isn't much of a choice." Samus carefully moved to the front of the Ghost as they came up to the behemoth. Linda and the two other Spartans hadn't taken care of all the forces above, some fired down upon them from the side they approached on.

Samus's armor absorbed the blows, shrinking by a tank by the time they got out of range. The centimeter of static surrounding her armor crackled and hissed under the blows. As soon as the enemies could no longer fire Samus raised her arm cannon to the center of the underside. A deformed triangle that formed a rough hook surrounded by a circle appeared on her HUD.

She gauged the distance and their velocity and jumped with as much force as she could muster. The nose of the ghost was pushed dangerously close to the ground, but didn't flip. As she reached the pick of her arc she activated her Space Boots and gained an extra two meters in height. The symbol grew and she pressed a button. Electro-magnetic waves shot from the mouth and latched onto the point. She felt her arm nearly jerk out of its socket as she became a pendulum from her own momentum.

She moved back in forth. At the top of a period she let her grappling point go and continued in a tangent. She curled into a ball, morphing into the odd second mode of her suit once more. As she felt the ball scrape the surface of the Scarab she head butted a button. The same waves that had held her in mid air snaked out between her descending body and the Scarab. She was pulled towards the hull.

Samus took a moment to orientate herself before moving up the hull. As she reached the top, the magnetic link weakened. Electric lines struggled to keep her on the magnetic seam. She hit the lever again and they disappeared. A charge grew around Samus for a moment before releasing.

Dust flew behind John as he moved to avoid enemy fire. He didn't dare to look back to see what had become of Samus after her flying leap. He could only assume that the Space Hunter had attained whatever twisted goal she had in mind.

He heard Spartan-043 whisper, "No way."


	23. Chapter 12 Of Scarabs 3

Dust flew behind John as he moved to avoid enemy fire. He didn't dare to look back to see what had become of Samus after her flying leap. He could only assume that the Space Hunter had attained whatever twisted goal she had in mind. 

He heard Spartan-043 whisper, "No way."

At that point John noticed a large red oval moving towards his position on his motion radar and banked to avoid the enemy. It had been an Elite in another ghost. He checked the weapons on the Ghost and fired at the alien controlled craft. After the third pass a rocket flew into the second ghost and it blew up.

John followed the path of the smoke trail and saw a Spartan with an M19 SSM launcher. The Spartan ducked for cover from some aliens that had been following him. John released the fury of the Ghost onto the group of Covenant. Their shields failed and they collapsed.

He took a second to look back at the Scarab. He saw corpses falling off the edge of the Scarab, dead from either Samus or a sniper, he couldn't tell. He looked around for Samus on the ground, but she was nowhere in sight. He turned back to the Spartan that had blown up the other ghost and flew the machine over to him.

The Spartan stood and hefted the launcher onto his back. John used his HUD to switch to TEAMBIO. He ran through the list of Spartans. Some of them had an elevated heart rate and others had lower blood pressures. The snipers were deadpan, and the four he had sent with the Helljumpers were experiencing a lower then normal heart rate, something he associated with "bored". Everyone was alive and able to fight, good.

He noticed a Spartan, 087-Kelly, constantly avoiding the attack of the Scarab. It was tracing her with its secondary fire, a continual rain of red-hot plasma. The Scarab stopped firing and the Master Chief heard it begin to charge up its energy capacitor. Kelly also noticed and staggered her running even more to confuse the driver.

The Scarab released its hellish blaze, several meters to Kelly's back and as close inward to the platform as possible. The beam moved farther away from Kelly instead of chasing her.

Kelly stopped running as she noticed that the exploding ground moved farther away from her. Molten rock and glass fragments spattered off of her shields, draining them only a little. She watched the Scarab carefully when the charged lance of energy gave out, ready to start a full-fledged run from any attacks it might fire at her again. But it just stopped doing anything.

There was a silenced roar as the Sangheili driver of the Scarab collapsed in a pile of its tar smelling blood. A trail of alien bodies was left on both sides of the split path that led down from the firing platform to the pilot's seat.

Samus loosed her arm cannon and took control of the Scarab, moving the already charged beam away from the Spartan's on the field. She cursed the holographic control panel, unable to destroy it. She could not find the projectors for the controls and gave up. With all its passengers dead, the Scarab would no longer be a problem.

She turned around and walked back up to the main section of the firing platform. As soon as Samus was up, there was a loud roaring in the sky.

A large shadow appeared, accompanied by a fleet of smaller ones. The larger shadow took position over the Scarab and its caster fired an expansive energy beam at a nearby Spartan. Plasma fire rained from the owners of the smaller shadows.

Three of the flying purple craft came towards Samus. The bounty hunter experimentally tested a few shots on the bulbous front of the vehicle. Nothing happened. She rolled to her right to avoid the plasma shots. She got up and ran forwards away from the fighters gaining speed. Plasma exploded on the metal behind her heels, lowering her shields.

Samus came to the edge of the platform and noticed more of the machines closing in on her. The warrior looked at the ground twenty meters below her and jumped. This was not going to be a pleasant landing. She curled up, going into her Morph Ball state. Plasma rounds ceased to follow her after a moment. They were either shocked or expected the fall to kill the human.

Ground exploded next to John. His shields drained down to a quarter and he was left wondering how his older shields would have lasted against that. He immediately ran to avoid the blast of the flying creature.

He looked up at the thing for a moment. It was the same thing that had spotted them when they were in station keeping around the planet. Ridley was what Samus had called it. The large dragon was looking right at him. It fired tracer missiles after him. The Spartan had to run to avoid the missiles. Half of them were clean misses, the remaining either hit him with their explosions or landed directly on him. The miniature blooms of fire completely drained the shields. He heard the warning tone as the small bar in the upper right hand corner of his HUD flashed red.

John had barely enough time to roll under the foot of the stationary Scarab to avoid the next volley of miniature missiles. They exploded harmlessly against the leg. In a second the shields had fully recovered and he crawled out. He sprinted forward and turned his head to see that Ridley had focused its attentions on Kelly.

The faster Spartan ran at random angles to avoid the missiles. They had difficulty homing in on her swift turns. They would fly forwards as she ducked or in tangents as she took a sharp turn. A few missiles managed to strike her, but she continued to divert Ridley's attention from the rest of the Spartans on the field.

The Chief's proximity warning flashed and he rolled to avoid the fire of one of the fliers that had forced Samus off the Scarab before.

Linda rested in her carefully scouted out sniping position. One of the three plasma pistols that the Chozo had altered was holstered to her hip. She realized that the MA5B Assault rifle would have been better for secondary weapon fire. However it had infinite ammunition and the weapon's second mode had a long-range attack. There was nothing that suited her better then anything that needed a long firing range.

She continuously switched between 2x and 8x magnification. She scouted out a viable target for the rifle; Linda knew that her rifle wouldn't do anything but irritate the behemoth dragon guarding the Scarab. One of the flying Banshees caught her attention. It was chasing a Spartan. She couldn't make out who the Spartan was from this distance, but she noticed that the Banshee as beginning to turn. It was nearly as high as she was.

Linda squinted and magnified on the back of the Banshee, or rather where she knew the Banshee would be by the time she fired. She took a brief moment to double check the target and fired the sniper round.

The Elite piloting the Banshee fell out, the bullet had gone in and blown its brains over the controls of the flyer. Linda was pleased at having made the trick shot but immediately zoomed out all magnification and scouted to make sure no one had spotted her position. The Spartan moved up the rock to another platform a meter ahead just for safety.

Carefully the sniper tracked the other Banshees and shot out their pilots before pausing to add in another magazine. The other three snipers were taking out ground units still running around. The Banshees were left to her.

John was grateful to hear the sound of the Banshee falling to the ground in an explosion, the Elite following him had been shot from it's seat. No doubt Linda had done that.

He heard the sound of a Covenant drop ship fly in. He turned his head in a momentary break to notice there were five of the lightly purple shaded tuning fork shaped drop ships. They flew above the Scarab and their sides released. Dozens of the littler Grunts and Jackals flew out; the Jackals formed a protective barrier with their circular shields. Elites followed the shields and cannon fodder. One of them disappeared from sight. A second later and the Scarab came to life once more.

Samus groaned where she had landed. There was a crater half again the Morph Ball's diameter and equal to the radius in depth. She tasted the iron blood in her mouth. She forced her mind to will the ball forward. Such a fall was not pleasant. She had felt the bone jarring stop as the Morph Ball had crunched into the ground, making it's mark. The gravity-beams that held her curled form in place had given way to give her body less of a shock as her momentum had suddenly disappeared. Her knees and wrists were bruised, she felt them forming from the force of impact to the inside of the Morph Ball.

She forced the thing to roll forward. Samus built up a charge and shot forwards. She then transitioned from the Morph Ball to be greeted by Banshee fire. 'Pleasant.' Samus thought as she dodged the attacks.


	24. Chapter 13 Of Oculi

Hey, guys. Am I writing the fight scenes out well?

* * *

**1900 Hours, August 31, 2552 (Military Calendar)**

**Surface of the ring, 451 kilometers from _Migration_**

Samus whirled and twisted her arm cannon's shape. It looked very similar to the plasma beam formation. However, this time the conduits glowed black and white. Samus grinned and charged the beam for a microsecond. Globules of black and white energy arced from the base of the arm cannon to the tip. She fired the blast. It hit home, dead center on the front of the Banshee.

Sound waves disturbed the anti-gravity units on the stubby wings of the Banshee for a moment. Then it continued, a blast of fuel rod came down in a half parabolic path where Samus was a second ago. The ground exploded and high velocity glass shards pinged against the static, and were instantly vaporized by the high levels of electric energy that surrounded the suit.

Samus charged the beam completely and aimed for the side. This time it exploded as a torrent of miniature sonic booms beat into the side of the Banshee and disrupted the engine pattern. It exploded and fell to the ground in a burning wreck.

Samus ducked to avoid more enemy fire. She twisted her head to look at Ridley. She thought nothing as she ran around the now moving Scarab, and danced around it's heavy legs while dodging attacks from Banshees. She grumbled, wanting to scan one of them, but having neither the time nor opportunity.

She rushed forwards as fast as possible. After two seconds of running into a straight line her suit charged energy. The black battle skin pulsed with red energy, doubling her velocity. Samus crouched once out from under the bottom of the moving platform. Her suit pulsed red. The hunter flexed her arm muscle and jumped upwards with as much force as she could gather. The energy charged around her suit released, propelling her upwards. After a few seconds the momentum gave out to the gravity of the world.

Samus twisted in the air to face Ridley. The larger pirate hovered in the air, taken off guard by her move. Samus was a hundred meters in the air, a fall from this height would be condensed agony delivered in a microgram dose, but survivable in her armor.

A charge gathered around her cannon and released as the hunter fell. The blast fired, turned with its small homing ability. It was like an extra large missile that glowed white. The blast hit Ridley square in the head. The dragon roared in anger and turned to look at his assailant.

Samus turned to face the ground, she noticed a Banshee flying closer to her. She held her breath as she activated her Space Jump boots. She rolled and was shot through the air by the force. As she uncurled her feet collided against the flyer. She pushed the Banshee down and jumped backwards and up. She charged her cannon again and turned to face Ridley, firing another of the white-hot blasts.

This time Samus was grazed with his mouth beam, her shields drained down to their ninth tank. The hunter looked around for another one of the flyers as she fell directly downwards. The attack from Ridley had negated all her horizontal motion. One of them flew directly under her. It did not lift to blast her or shower her with fire. Samus landed on the top of it and her suit instantly displayed the pilot's IFF tag. It was a Spartan.

"Thanks." Samus muttered as she looked up at Ridley, "Get me closer."

The pilot complied and Samus leapt from the top of the Banshee and grabbed Ridley's foot. She used her left hand to keep her in position. She charged her beam cannon and blasted Ridley with another Super Missile. Samus checked the safeties on her cannon, three flaps flipped outwards from the muzzle.

A chill grew around her hand and she released the missile. It flew forward and made contact with Ridley. A rush of cold air blasted outwards from the missile's explosion and chilled the outer frontal circuits on Ridley. Samus fired more missiles repetitively against Ridley, not even bothering to charge them. Ridley violently shook his foot to try and rid himself of Samus.

Nearly one hundred missiles later, Samus was left down to a supply of 117, Ridley managed to shake Samus off after falling seventeen meters. Samus double checked behind her and fired off more rounds at Ridley. When she was less then a second away from the ground she morphed into her Morph Ball.

This time the crater was twice her diameter wide and once in depth. She was sure that there would be large nasty bruises on her knees and wrists. Samus felt light-headed as she felt more blood trickle into her mouth. She shook her head and rolled forwards. When she got out of the crater, Samus turned her suit back to normal.

Samus turned to see Ridley flying up farther into the air. Samus paused to consider; there was no way Ridley would come down far enough to get in range of weapons, and Ridley would likely stop anyone from getting near enough the Scarab to stop it again. Samus knew she wouldn't be walking if she tried to get up to him and fell again. She opened a line over TEAMCOM, "Everyone inside the fire ring, get as far away from the Scarab as fast as you can, preferably a quarter of a kilometer." There were acknowledgement lights and the Spartans fell back.

Samus ran away as well, her suit glowed with energy again as she accelerated away from the Scarab. She opened a line with Spartan-058, "Do you think you could hit the Scarab with the plasma pistol fully charged in the Chozo mode?"

There was a slightly pause and then she got an acknowledgement light. Samus stopped running once she was clear. She flattened her arm cannon and called the drop ships to the area.

Five full seconds later Linda fired the plasma pistol shot. It arced in the air, making a lackadaisical path towards the Scarab. The pilot thought nothing of the bolt, it would not affect his craft; the blast was no different then any other fully charged plasma pistol shot. The men atop the platform could and would simply move out of the way.

And so the Covenant did. However, this blast was very different. It exploded with the light, force, and fury of a miniature nuke. The Spartan's face plating could barely polarize fast enough to keep them from being blinded completely. Samus simply diverted her gaze.

When the light faded, the ground around the Scarab had been glassed in a shadow of the machine. Its joints had collapsed as it had fallen to the ground. All the aliens aboard had been instantly vaporized. The field of devastation was two hundred forty-five meters on the ground and had hit the tail of Ridley as he had turned to leave the area.

John switched to TEAMBIO, all vital signs were present and accounted for, except for the four Spartans that had left before, but they were probably out of range. There had been no casualties from that shot. He let go of a breath he had been holding. The Master Chief now understood why it was exactly that Samus had ordered him not to discharge the pistol at full charge. It would have killed them all in that tiny area.

Except possibly Samus. After that fall, the noncom wasn't sure if she could be killed. Even his men would have had difficulty getting up from a fall like that, let alone cover that distance in that amount of time. It was definitely a matter he wanted to question Samus about the next chance he got. Along with those pods with the giant pirates.

A minute later, a drop ship landed in the center of the devastation and two arrived outside the arena where the Scarab had been.

Samus walked up to John and waved him towards the drop ship. He gave an order.

"Load up, Spartans." The snipers clambered down from their positions and got onto different drop ships.

Samus let John and the ten Spartans inside the barrier climb in before her. She removed her helmet as she jumped up and spat the blood that had pooled in her mouth from before onto the glassy ground.

"Someone else fly us back." Samus ordered as she sat down in one of the seats, placing her helmet next to her. Samus buckled in and lifted up her left arm. She waved her hand back in forth, trying to persuade the pain in the joint into leaving. It persisted in staying and causing more pain, so the hunter gave up and went back to ignoring it.

She felt stares on her ducked head and closed her eyes, forcing them from green back to their usual blue. Samus finally looked up at the ten Spartans seated in the area. It seemed as though Spartan-039 was flying the ship.

"What?" Samus asked. She was exhausted, but didn't show it. In that brief mission she had lost more of her shields from singular attacks then she ever had before. Not to mention the two falls from great heights. It was of course, nothing she was unable to deal with; however, the mission had proved to be tiring.

Kelly spoke first. "How'd you jump so high?"

"An addition to my suit called the Speed Booster. When I run long enough it gives me a boost in Speed. I can store that and release it to go up very high. Unfortunately, I don't really have a lot of control over my motion and I can't stop until the energy runs out." That had also been a very dangerous stunt, she didn't know when the energy would run out; she could have been halfway out the atmosphere when that had happened for all she knew.

However, at that point Samus had deemed it a worthy risk. Ridley was a more dangerous enemy to the group at the time then the Scarab was. One of his blasts could kill a Spartan. The Scarab, unless it fully charged its energy capacitor, couldn't. Now looking back the move had been a little stupid, but luck generally turned in her favor.

"How did you survive that fall?" Spartan-093, Grace, asked.

"My suit's morph ball mode uses gravity beams to keep me in place. In high velocity falls they can compensate for the fall, just barely. Without that, it's a lot harder to even think of moving afterwards for a full minute." Samus had once jumped down a distance of one hundred meters without morphing in a ball. She had had great difficulty in standing up, let alone fighting the next large enemy that crossed her. She paused to consider and replaced her helmet. She looked at a Spartan, nodded and kept it on, "The Chozo have enhanced your suit's ability to handle such falls, so it won't kill you...but it's still not a suggestion."

Samus leaned backwards in the chair. She looked over towards John, "You have a question for me as well?"

"Yes." John said as he sent an image over TEAMCOM. "What is that thing?"

Samus stared quietly at the image of the pod. It was a good clear shot of an extra large pirate in a semi-sedated cyro-sleep. Or at least she assumed that it was semi-sedated from the lack of the extremely thick fog that the pirates used to sedate the brutes. A few normal pirates stood next to the pod, checking on the user's status. By comparison the pod was huge, more than double the pirates' height.

Samus shrugged the image off. However she sensed various forms of discomfort from the Spartans. She of course understood; they probably had never taken on things so much bigger than they were on a daily basis. "It's just an Elite Pirate." Samus said in an off-hand casual way. Sure Elites were unpleasant, but they were by no means insanely difficult to her. "They're huge, but they're slow. Their melee attacks would completely destroy your shields and knock back a meter if not unconscious, if it landed the blow. Their wave quake generator can be dodged by jumping, and the plasma artillery cannon on their backs is like their melee attacks. It's easy to kill them with..." Samus cut off as a fact settled into her head. She realized that the Spartans would have much greater difficulties with the Elites then she ever would.

"With what?"

"I think you guys would have greater difficulty with them then I do. Your most effective weapon would be the rocket launcher in Chozo mode or a lot of plasma." Samus quickly ran through the mother ship's weapon diagnostics, and highlighted an item of interest, making sure that her suit would remind her when they got back to the loading bay. "Or a Chozo emergency pistol set to plasma and fully charged. I'll distribute them."

Samus flicked the image back on, "One item of interest...how many were in that area?"

"Four or more."

Samus nodded. She didn't, of course, like the sound of that. It meant the Pirates were making a serious counter-response to her this time. "Anything else I can clear up for you guys?"

Will spoke up, "Yeah...how did you get to the top of the Scarab like you did?"

"Oh that," Samus said, almost smiling. The grapple beam addition to her suit was used for pleasure in the Federation, but the Spartans were completely in the dark about it. "Grapple Beam and Spider Ball features to my suit. The Grapple Beam attaches itself to points of high electro-magnetism and pulls me there within an effective range of five meters. The Spider Ball does the same thing in Morph Ball mode...except I have to be directly on the point and activate the function to stick there and roll upwards. I guess that the Scarab's generator creates a lot of that energy."

Samus settled back into the chair and closed her eyes. She didn't fall asleep, but she did drift in and out of consciousness.


	25. Chapter 13 Of Oculi 2

A pirate came up to the area where the Scarab had once stood. He had been given the standing orders to inspect the area Samus had been to see if it was possible to grab a sample of her DNA. He found it a useless task. If they hadn't breached her suit, then there would be none of her genetic code lying around. 

However, the Pirate understood the importance of the task. If the Pirates could get the bioform Samus Aran's DNA they could possibly unlock her secrets. Why she was so much faster and stronger then any other race they had encountered. They could possibly make flash clones of Samus like they continuously did of Ridley. An army of Pirate controlled Arans. That was worth any amount of tedium.

The Pirate trooper got so excited by the idea that he nearly missed a blood pool on the cracked glass. The pirate inspected it; the blood was red, just like any standard human's blood, but it was also watery, indicating it was full of saliva. Samus's high force falls could have pooled blood into her mouth which she could have spat out. But, the blood looked so normal, it was too human, he had been expecting it to look less full of iron, more full of copper or something else that would indicate non-human life. But this had also been the point where Samus's drop ship had allegedly been. He pulled out a sampling tube and gathered a few drops of the blood. This might be what the Pirates had been looking for this entire time. It could be Samus's blood.

The trooper called in for aerial transport, painfully aware that this would be the only sample he would be able to collect. He only hoped for the sake of his life that it was Samus's blood.

* * *

"Greetings, Lady," Adam transmitted to the drop ship when they got within a kilometer of the mother ship. "How did the reclamation of the Oculus go? The last input I received, I was told that you and all the Spartans were going to meet the Marines."

Samus snapped her eyes open, "What? You don't know?"

"Negative, Lady. Why should I? And more importantly, why is the fourth transport still 452 kilometers from this position?"

"Adam...I had the four Spartans, the marines, and the Oculus sent back over an hour ago. They should have returned by now."

"No they haven't."

"You're joking."

"I'm afraid I'm not. It seems that they encountered some resistance coming back. Or are unable to pilot the drop ship." A moment later, "I am I receiving an emergency broad cast from the fourth transport, dated twenty minutes ago. Would you like to hear it?"

"Send it to the Master Chief as well."

The transmission abruptly broadcast across Samus's and John's speakers, "We were ambushed by fifty Pirates and Elites on our way back. We made a path out of the woods and went into hiding at a cave. However they managed to get us to drop that orb on the way. Many of the Marines are badly wounded. We'll remain in hiding until the area clears up."

Samus looked over at John after the message was sent. "Want to go see what's up over there?"

"Yes."

"Okay," Samus said as she sighed, "I'll drive there. Adam, tell the other's we're making a pit stop and give me the coordinates of the ship. Everyone else, buckle up tight."

Samus switched places with 039-Isaac in the pilot's seat.

Isaac sat down and buckled tightly into the seat as Samus accelerated to twice their original speed. "What's going on, sir?"

"I sent some members of red team to help some marines get off the field. They ran into some trouble, we're going to give them some back up."

Within fifteen minutes they landed next to the marine drop ship. Samus camouflaged both ships.

The team of ten made their way silently down the path where the Marines had obviously gone through given the boot prints. They used hand gestures to communicate. Kelly looked around and spotted something. She waved the group to a halt and pointed towards the trees and brush to the side. There was a deep gouge in the forest, enough for a company of fifty to go through.

They cautiously made their way along the side of the path, keeping an eye out for enemy contacts. Fred pointed to a small diversion, where the Spartans must have made their way through.

They followed that path, again following in a staggered line a meter to either side of the path. They came to a cave. John put a hand up to order them to stop and signaled them to go to either side of the entrance. He entered the cavern, eyes quickly adjusting to the dark with the help of his helmet.

John examined the area, and noticed bodies in the back of the cave. He walked to the back and noticed that they were marines. A quick check ensured the soldiers were alive. He waved in four more of his men. John looked around the cave once more before helping carry the men out.

They walked back to the drop ship and one of the Spartans started it up and flew it back. The group of three backtracked to the mouth of the cave. Samus was examining the ground around the cave, carefully.

John walked over to her and crouched next to her. He looked over at the bounty hunter, holding both hands out, palm up and shrugged. This usually asked for opinions, but this time he was asking for what had caught the hunter's attention.

Samus didn't reply verbally, instead she pointed to some undergrowth. It had been pushed to the side, carefully, and was almost unnoticeable at a first glance. Samus had noticed it because she was used to tracking targets; one out of every twenty missions for Samus was tracking high value stealth targets, tracking four Spartans was nothing new to her. They had to be nearby.

John understood what the small trail meant, he waved his team forward and they followed Samus as she walked through the barely perceptible path. When the trail stopped she waved the team to a halt. Samus looked around at the trees, she noticed some slight scraping in the bark.

Samus turned on her thermal vision, but saw nothing. She followed with the echo visor, if there was any movement from them breathing she would see them, but there was no motion beyond the shifting of the leaves in the wind. She used her x-ray visor, a sensitive Chozo designed film coated her visor in a split second. Her visibility became limited to twenty meters, however now her visor could see the shorter x-ray wavelengths, most of what she saw was a strict navy haze, hard objects were white and softer ones were a pale blue. Samus understood the basic precepts of the visor, explained to her as a child while in training, but she'd be a liar if she said she completely understood the matter.

However, it did allow her the one privilege whoever was in the tree didn't want to allow her. The ability to see them. There they were, with the visor she saw the distinctive form of four Spartans in battle armor safely nestled in the stronger boughs of the trees surrounding them.

Samus waved to the Master Chief and pointed to the Spartans. Then she shrugged, trying to indicate that she didn't know how to get them down. John walked over to the tree and whistled a tune very softly, it had but seven notes. Within an instant the four Spartans dropped to the ground. Samus cocked her head to the side, knitting her eyebrows. The tune played at the very edges of her mind, taunting her with its almost familiarity.

Samus shrugged the feeling off and they returned to the drop ship. Twenty-five minutes later they were back at the mother ship. Samus set up one of the portable stations and revitalized her suit's shields, and missile count. Samus grinned to herself and removed the helmet once she was safely on the bridge.

"Adam, what's the status of those Marines?"

"Dr. Hasley is using the medical bay to improve their condition. It will be five hours until they are fit for duty again. However, there was one death."

"Alright. What about the Oculus, Adam?"

A holographic map appeared in front of the view screen. It showed their position and then the map moved up spin of the ring several kilometers. An arrow appeared, a box showed, labeling the area as "TARGET". "Position keeping of Oculus has been stable for the past hour, Lady. Passive scans relayed by the Oculus reveal some sort of alien structure." A separate screen appeared in front of the map. It showed dark purple hallways that had a trapezoid shape. "Apparently not of pirate origin. This means that it is either a Covenant ship hovering above the surface of the ring, or the inside of the ring itself. Other analysis, such as sensitive gravity indicators, conclude that there is an altitude of approximately one hundred meters above "ground level" of the ring."

"Limiting locations to a Covenant cruiser. Alright." Samus turned her attention to the door of the bridge as John walked in. "Hi, Chief."

John looked at the holographic displays, "What are those?"

"Displays from the Oculus, and its relative location."

"What is that thing?"

"The Oculus is a Chozo weapon. It's an eye so that they could see the inside of an enemy's base. It can then be detonated. It is ten times more potent then any nuclear weapon I've seen, and gives off a much cleaner burst since it doesn't have any radiation. It can take huge amounts of damage before going off."

"How many do we have?"

"One. And about seventeen Oculi. The other thing is that if you remove the Oculus's casing to explore what's inside, or try to examine it any other way, it explodes, taking about everything within a six thousand kilometer radius with it. The Oculi have a devastation range of two thousand kilometers in diameter. You can understand why I don't want to let the Covenant or Pirates get a hold of it for very long. They can use that to obliterate the Federation and the UNSC."

"Yes. If they try to find out what's inside it..."

"We're all doomed, basically. How long will it take your men to be prepared to infiltrate the ship and retrieve the Oculus? And more importantly, how many men do you think it will take?"

"We'll be ready in an hour. Six more of my men should be more then enough."

"Good. Alright, let's figure out how to go about this. Adam, give us a video log containing the Oculus's video files so we can get something about the area before going in. Chief, tell your men to take an hour to prepare themselves."


	26. Chapter 14 Of Truth

Greetings, boys and girls. Now its time for the next chapter in To Begin Normality.

* * *

**2115 Hours, August 31, 2552 (Military Calendar)**

**Surface of the ring, Under Covenant Cruiser _Truth and Reconciliation_**

The Pirate that had collected the blood sample waited impatiently for a Pirate drop to arrive. There would be several troops and information on the DNA sample. He was Rlo'enaitha, a Pirate Major. Rlo was typically in charge of his own men, troops that had been designed, trained and equipped with the sole purpose of killing Samus.

Enaitha was unused to being the crew that followed in Samus's footsteps to try and find her DNA. He remembered bringing the blood sample into the Pirate command ship. He had found himself more comfortable with taking on Samus one-on-one then facing Ridley's wrath if he had been unsuccessful in garnering a sample of her genetic code.

Enaitha noticed a black armored elite walk towards him. He frowned as he activated the translator the science team had provided him with.

"Why are your men coming here, Pirate?"

"To protect the Oculus. The bioform Samus Aran has undoubtedly noticed it is missing by now. According to information gathered by our science team on the Oculus, she undoubtedly knows of its location. She will come here to try and retrieve it." The pirate major took to pacing, "We will augment your defense teams with several of our heavy weapon specialists. If they cannot remove Aran, they should take care of those humans that accompany her. Perhaps that will persuade her to leave."

"One human is a mere trifle. You Pirates concern to much over the matter."

"Bioform Samus Aran's threat to us is not moot." Said the Pirate officer as he turned to look at the Covenant Elite in the eye, "She has effectively caused the genocide of a life that we cannot contain, destroyed several cruisers and space stations without aid, and taken down out our most powerful unit without ever coming close to capture. The bioform is the only reason that we have been unsuccessful in wiping out the humans so far. You will allow us to augment your defense teams with our heavy weapon specialists."

"How strong are these heavy weapon specialists?"

"They have the strength of six of your Lekgolo and quadruple the endurance. If they cannot destroy Samus, they will at the least impair her progress to allow for the safe transportation of the Oculus away from this location. We must not allow her to regain possession of it."

At that moment a pirate flyer came in. He landed on the ground near Enaitha, "Sir, reporting data on the genetic code you found as Master Ridley ordered."

The major ignored the elite he had been talking to and focused on the flying pirate, "Well?" Fear and anxiety wrecked havoc inside of him, however, he contained the feelings.

"Science team reports a 100 accuracy that it does belong to that of bioform Samus Aran." The trooper handed the Pirate a small copper rod and Enaitha relaxed before taking it. "Information has been temporarily stored on this and will be automatically erased one unit after activation." With that the flying pirate took to the skies. "Zeldoc troops will arrive in half a unit." He added before disappearing.

Enaitha used his suit's subsystems to activate the data the trooper had handed him. A holographic display appeared in the Pirate dialect.

**Genetic code found by Gojunac unit Rlo'enaitha has been found to contain the typical redundant chromosome found in female humans, which stimulated more intensive research. Further analysis of the DNA strands indicated high amounts of instability. A complete analysis indicated that there had been many alterations in the genetic code bioform Samus Aran had originally.**

**Many strands (see attached comparison images) had standard human coding. Other strands (see attached comparison images) had the coding of another race; we hypothesize that it would be that of the Chozo that the bioform's suit was made by. The remaining strands indicate infusion with the Metroid species (see attached comparison images).**

**It is a curiosity. Due to the afore mentioned instability of the genetic code due to the significant alterations made to it, cloning is deemed impossible at this time. We would require to more massive amounts of bioform Samus Aran's genetic code or the bioform herself to study how her body compensates for the inherent instability. **

**As of right now, the genetic code would allow us to, near the end of the next cycle, modify the weaponry of our troops to be more effective on the exact sequencing of bioform Samus Aran's unique genetic coding.**

The Major looked over the comparison images and had to agree that the code was unique and could only belong to the Hunter. He tossed the copper rod to the dirt and ground it in. In less than a unit, that thing would be a worthless scrap of metal and until then it would blend perfectly with the dirt. A few minutes later and the Zeldoc troops arrived. Enaitha distributed them on the Covenant cruiser and the ground. Fighting five of them in an hour should weaken the Hunter.

The Hunter seemed to have survived all previous encounters with the Zeldoc by the wide time gaps between them that she used to recover. There would be no such mercy for her this time.

A normal pirate came up to Rlo. "Sir! There are scattered reports of fading radar signals, like ghosts. There also was a spike in energy readings here." The pirate pulled out a copper rod and pointed it outwards, a holographic map appeared and an arrow pointed to the other side of a cliff.

The major nodded and dispatched orders for his men to get ready for Samus.

* * *

The marine driver of the drop ship eased the vehicle to the ground. Samus had seen to it that a recharge station had been dropped off somewhere, just in case she needed it. Aside from her there were three Spartans seated in the loading bay: John, Kelly, and Linda. The other team of four Spartans, Fred, Will, Grace, and Isaac, would accompany them later when they got to the Covenant cruiser. They would bring a supply of ammunition with them, which would help with the invasion of _Truth and Reconciliation_.

John inspected the third weapon Samus had supplied every Spartan with. She insisted that they carry it in addition to the other two weapons they used. It was a small pistol. The pistol auto-charged blasts in two seconds. The charge bar appeared instead of his ammo counter on his HUD. The gun cycled shots quickly. It was a Chozo emergency pistol of extreme strength. It fired a blast equivalent to half the strength of Samus's fully charged plasma beam when at max charge.

Samus had said that if they went up against Elite Pirates, this would help make the odds of winning without a rocket launcher from zero to plausible, but still nigh on impossible. She had explained that they would be unable to damage the Elites without a M19 or those pistols. The plasma rifle did do a lot of damage in either mode, and so did the fully charged plasma pistol, she had said, but they would be incapable of getting through the Elite Pirate's armor without those.

He jumped out of the loading bay, landing without a sound right next to Samus. The Hunter waited until the other two Spartans were out and waved them forward. They came to a wide, narrow turn in the canyon walls. Samus checked her radar and flipped through the various visors equipped to her suit before waving Linda forward.

The Spartan leapt into the shadows, keeping her body as close to the wall as she could. In the growing darkness of the ring, she would have little to no difficulty in getting into a good sniping spot. Linda snuck through the shadows and climbed up a small hill.

At that point she spotted the stationary plasma turrets. There were three of the Shades, running hot with grunts manning them. She knew they couldn't severely damage her team, but they would be irksome. She took note of their positions and cycled off the rounds in her rifle. The grunts fell down in seconds.

The valley before the sniper exploded into motion. Linda fired the last round in the chamber, taking down an elite, and changed positions. She took out the empty magazine, put in a fresh one and cycled the bolt. She also winked her acknowledgement light to John, letting him know that the area was free from Elite Pirates.

The rest of the group swiftly invaded the area and took down the opposition. John checked his motion tracker, on the very edges a few red ovals could be found. They flew in towards them at an alarming rate.

"Contacts. Everyone, get your heads down."

Then air troopers flew in from behind the cliffs and rained fire upon the group. The soldiers avoided the enemy fire for the most part, but had a hard time finding an opening to launch their own attack.

Linda cycled through four rounds of her sniper rifle, taking one of the seven flying pirates down in fiery blooms. She moved and silently changed magazines.

The Spartans released suppressed fire on some of the other pirates. Samus calmly refrained from remaining hidden at all and just blasted the pirates to hell. Then she noticed one mistake, more contacts had appeared on her radar while they had been occupied with the flying troops. The contacts were stationary, so they weren't likely to be on the Spartans' detectors. By her count there were sixteen.

John paused in his assault on the pirates as he spotted motion out of the corner of his eye. The plasma turret lifted up as the anti-grav units propelled the firing section upwards a few inches and added some light to the general area. He took the time to take a look at his motion detector and saw nothing. He looked again at the turret and saw it was back to its unused position. What in the world had happened?


	27. Chapter 14 Of Truth 2

He cleared his head and helped to finish off the last of the air-borne enemies. Then he heard Samus whisper over TEAMCOM. 

"They snuck in more units on us while we were fighting the pirates. They're stationary though. I have sixteen on radar right now." That explained the turret, but why had it suddenly gone back to station keeping?

Samus shut her shielding down, the red glow of her armor faded and the constant hum that had encased Samus ceased to exist. The metal could hold against a great number of blows but this was still dangerous. John traced her movement on the motion tracker.

"Five more." Samus reviewed their positions on her radar. The new five were the most clustered out of all of them. She lifted a hand up and switched to her thermal visor, as she was unable to see much in the pervading darkness. Bright yellow forms popped to life from the muted purple scenery.

She recognized their shape instantly. A quick check halfway ensured that the rest of them were either pirate stealth troops or covenant elites. "If you guys have thermal visors, this would be a great time to use them. They don't have guns, and are stuck to close range attacks." Samus checked, there were quite a few of the Shadow Pirates, but only two of the stealth elites. She checked the area, there was a good cluster of six aliens, and they stood in a circle facing outwards. Good idea, if the attack weren't going to be coming from the center.

Samus curled into her morph ball, still lacking her shields and any light to give away her position. The hunter checked off a trigger once in the middle of the group. Energy sloughed off the sides of the morph ball, gathering in an unstable orb below her. Samus wasted no time as the energy let of a distinct sound that became louder in pitch and volume. She rolled away from the confused and shocked aliens and made it safely to some rocky cover. She reactivated her shielding.

The energy Samus had dropped burst outwards. The six aliens were instantly vaporized in a blinding flash of light. They only had the time to register a sense of pain before their lives ended. The covenant elites registered more pain as the shields tried vainly to spare their lives. The gold sheen flickered, sparked, and died along with the beings they surrounded.

The valley exploded to life, the Spartans shot down the disguised aliens. Linda cycled through the rounds of her sniper rifle as fast as she could after getting a viable target.

Kelly danced away from the blade that the Shadow Pirate used. The light-bending plating on the armor was hard to see through in the night. However with her thermal optics package on, she could easily see and avoid the melee attacks the pirates offered. Her proximity warning went off and she noted the enemy behind her. She ducked and rolled to the side, the Shadow Pirate unleashed a powerful attack onto the Pirate that had been in front of the Spartan.

During the momentary confusion, Kelly lifted up her assault rifle. Explosions rocketed against the armor of a Shadow Pirate. In seconds the second Pirate was down. Kelly frowned and put the assault rifle onto the clip on her waist and pulled out the handgun. She dodged an attack from the surviving stealth unit fired a few rounds into its head.

John, at the same time, had his hands full with three of the disguised aliens. Even and controlled bursts from his rifle peppered the armor of the pirates. As one of the three went down a new one jumped out from behind its fallen comrade.

The Pirate hit John with a melee attack. The soldier stumbled backwards, shields getting cut down to a quarter charge; however, he quickly recovered and fired on the assailant. The pirate died with a loud wail.

Samus lunged to the side to avoid a blow from an elite. She assailed it with two missiles. The alien's shields gave out after the first and the second killed it. She then powered up her plasma beam, red energy charging at the muzzle of her weapon. She turned and blasted the stealth pirate behind her with the full charge.

The alien roared as it died. The plasma burst had ignited the methane atmosphere inside the suit. It was burned in a second and the suit exploded, turning the charred remains into ash.

In a few minutes the human troops had destroyed the aliens in the valley. They marched forward, making cautious progress through a narrow track. Then it began again. Linda cleared the area of the plasma turrets, and signaled them to come in.

This time the area gave way to a large drop on the left side and there was a faint rock bridge that gave easy access from one side of the depression in the walled in section to the next side.

The aliens in the area were quickly dealt with along with the reinforcement of six Jackals. After that they marched forward again. The next bend then turned and twisted several meters until they were in another roughly circular area.

The Covenant ship hovered hundreds of meters above, a purple light issued from its belly onto a circular platform above. Purple lights angled upwards a little and over the platform into the anti gravity beam that allowed units to drop down or board the craft in seconds. Two Shades had been positioned strategically to offer some sort of protection.

Samus swapped through her visors, and found the area eerily clear of enemies. The force of three elites and ten grunts melted under the fire of the Spartans.

"Okay, Red Team, feel free to drop in." Samus said over the com line after getting a nod from John. She paused and turned to look at the way they had entered. «C'jinlor.» The Chozo warrior muttered under her breath.

The source of her irritation was the twenty-foot tall energy barrier that had been placed over the sole egress. It was a dull orange coloration and static lines pulsed through it, parallel to the ground. Whatever the aliens had planned for them, it was clear they wanted the soldiers to stay for it.

Everyone turned to look at the barrier. John recognized it. The barrier was the same type the Pirates had placed for security measures on their ships to inhibit the progress of intruders.

"Well that's just great." Samus mumbled turning to look back at the gravity lift. "Everyone, ready those plasma blasters." She knew that the Pirates had created this. They used the barriers to keep her from retreating into narrow corridors when she was facing very strong, very challenging, and very large troops. They made sure that she had to face the wrath of the soldiers unblocked by anything as trivial as a passage that was too small for their unit to move through.

Sure enough an Elite Pirate gracefully fell down the lift. And then a curved barrier appeared over the open edge that composed half of the side of the arena. Just to make sure that all exits were covered no doubt. They wouldn't let their prey escape by something as simple as a drop ship coming in to whisk them away.

Above the ground four more of the Elite Pirates waited. Two of them were waiting in very cramped positions near the gravity lift. Everyone knew that the first pirate down was a definite goner. The Spartans and Samus would surely make light work of him. However upon his death the two would jump down the lift one at a time and engage the pests together.

Right now, with full battle equipment and armor on the drop bay was very uncomfortable. The two Elites had to crouch to fit in the small ceilings and took up most of the room. It had been impossible to get a Grunt around the bay when the third Elite had been in there.

They waited impatiently for the signal to flash from his armor as he died. The two Elites knew that their odds of defeating the humans would be much improved after their comrade's fall, but perhaps they wouldn't succeed. That's what the other two were for. They had been striped of their quake generators so they wouldn't rip the ship in half, but they had another plasma weapon system to take it's place, which would allow a nearly constant flow of attacks. They waited in the two separate halves of the loading bay. The drop ships and Banshees had needed to be expelled from the ship for the time being.

They had all trained together and the losses would be great, but they knew their sacrifices would not be in vain. They would help rid the Pirates of the Hunter that had plagued them for so long.

The single elite pirate below roared as it spotted the scum. He stepped off the platform, the ground shuddered and trembled under his weight. The super-pirate looked for a viable target, helmet visor enhancing his already Phazon augmented night-vision. He could see as if the sun of the system were at its highest point and then some. The shadows were bare pools of gray and nothing could be hidden in them.

He was able to sharply make out the three other vermin in addition to the Hunter. The Pirate feigned towards aiming at one of the free moving parasites, while setting the firing solution towards the one that hid in the shadows with an elongated rifle. Whatever that one's purpose was, he was going to cut it short. The target that thought it was hidden would make extremely easy prey for the Elite.

The blue from Samus's eyes faded, turning those irises a green shade. The Elite had lifted its arm up, attention fixed on Kelly. However, she got the distinct feeling that the fastest Spartan was not his real intent.

"Linda, move, now." She ordered the sniper over TEAMCOM. Samus understood that Linda would be annoyed at having to leave the position, but she knew that a stationary target was easier to hit then Kelly was.

Linda begrudgingly had accepted the order, just as a blast of plasma was shot from the cannon on its back. Kelly flinched, beginning to turn to avoid the blow she had been sure was fixed upon her. Then she noticed the rush of super heated ions did not come her way, but exactly where Linda had taken her position up to snipe.

Linda dropped to a crouch and shoved of the ground, hard. She was sent forwards, the attack from the Elite was relatively slow, but massive. The globule of plasma was three quarters of a meter in diameter and would certainly send a wash of energy out from impact. She was reasonably certain that the jump would propel her away from most of the blast and hopefully her shields would bear the brunt of anything she didn't avoid.

The boiling blue projectile hit it's mark, dead center where Linda had been half a second previous. A wash of excess energy, glass and rock exploded from the impact. The by-product of the shot sent Linda careening into the ground. She hit the dirt hard, and her shields gave out from both impact forces.


	28. Chapter 15 Of Reconcilliation

Oh my...UGH! I couldn't update for the past while because FF would let me upload for some reason. Sorry for keeping you all waiting.

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**2215 Hours, August 31, 2552 (Military Calendar)  
Surface of the ring, Under Covenant Cruiser _Truth and Reconciliation_**

John checked to make sure Linda was alive by ensuring that her vitals were still there, and stable. Her heart was beating like a machine gun and the blast had given her some second-degree burns. John knew Linda would live, and focused his attention on the Elite.

The Spartan slung his rifle and took out the auto-charging Chozo pistol. Kelly followed his example and slung her machine gun, drawing out the sidearm Samus had given her. The bounty hunter lifted a hand to bear on the base of her arm cannon, manually switching the modes.

"Aim for the head!" She told them. Samus took two steps to her left, circling the brute, coming about to its side. A pulse of fire unleashed itself from the mouth of her gun, it was slow moving, but it hit the Elite's shoulder. Her fist curled, pulling on a miniature lever inside the barrel. The temperature of the air spiked around the muzzle of her arm cannon, heat disturbed the air, and there was a dull glow of flame around the mouth.

The monster roared and looked at Samus. It lifted up a hand as it walked towards her, causing a small disturbance in the air. Blue-black energy shields rippled to life and coated the pirate.

"Don't fire. That thing can absorb the energy of your attacks and use it for its weaponry." Samus told them, without much concern or worry, over TEAMCOM. She used her left hand to steady her right arm as she kept it trained on the Elite's head. She circled the opponent, always staying just out of range for a melee attack.

John frowned when he heard Samus's statement. How long could it keep that up, he wondered. He kept his sidearm trained on the Elite as he glanced over to Kelly.

"Move Linda. Make sure it can't fire on her."

Kelly nodded and ran over to the unconscious Spartan. Kelly had just lifted Linda up and started to move when the Elite fired at them once again. Although she was burdened with an extra half a ton of dead weight, the Spartan still managed to make dodging the blast look easy.

Samus didn't waste a second. The Elite Pirate had to have let its guard down for a moment to try and finish off the downed Spartan. She released the miniature lever, and a stream of white-hot plasma issued from her cannon. The back of Samus's hand felt cold in the night air after the heat had left.

John instantly fired his sidearm when Samus let go of her plasma charge. The pistol released a globule of blue light that hit the back of the Pirate's head.

Both blasts hit the Elite. He roared in anger. He lifted up his arm, recreating the energy shield. He had been trained to never let his guard down. How could he have forgotten? Samus always took advantage of such mistakes. He could not allow her to gain such an advantage.

Samus was probably only two meters from the Elite, not such a great distance. The other threat was nearly the same distance. The Elite gave what passed for a laugh among his fellows. Not even Samus could guess his next move.

The Elite roared and lifted both hands to the sky, blue-black energy gathering at his hands. He brought them crashing down to the ground.

John stood still a second after seeing the Elite survive the attack. The blast from Samus would have melted through titanium, and his shields. "How did it survive?"

"Super tough alloy for armor. Don't ask, just jump up." Samus said passively, but with a trance hint of anxiety. Samus recognized the next move the Elite was preparing to make. In her past experience, they had never used that move when they were so close, preferring melee attacks. Their arms would reach the distance.

She jumped up from the ground and began another charge cycle on her plasma beam. With her jumping ability augmented in the suit, she was able to launch two meters and a half from the ground. She jumped up just as the Elite pummeled the ground. There was a miniature earthquake and loss rubble skidded down the cliff faces and danced on the trembling ground.

The earthquake was not the cause of Samus's concern. It was the rush of indigo energy that radiated from the Pirate. It started as three feet from the ground and grew to two meters in height almost instantly. The particle energy dissipated after it had reached out a radius of fifteen feet. The waves of energy licked the bottoms of Samus's feet as gravity took possession of her. Samus didn't wait for her feet to touch the ground before hitting the Elite with another plasma blast.

John, however, was not quite so fortunate. He jumped with enough force to bring him up at his max, two meters, but just not fast enough. The energy from the Quake Generator on the Pirate's back slammed into the soldier's torso and flung him backwards. The noncom landed on his back spread-eagle style four meters back. The wind had been knocked out of him and he felt as though his entire lower body had been filled with cotton. He groaned as he tried to stand up. He glanced at his shields, and noticed that the blast had blown them away.

John lifted his pistol, noted that it was fully charged and fired it without question at the Elite. Then he darted, trying to buy his shields time to recharge.

Samus pursed her lips when she noticed John; this was not going to work very well. She quietly constrained her impatience with the Elite and switched her arm cannon back to its normal configuration. She held a charge with the power beam and waited for the perfect moment to strike.

Linda sat up and wiped out her confusion. She noticed Kelly was next to her, attention fixed on the large Pirate trooper. Linda drew out her side arm. She whistled to get her fellow's attention. Kelly looked back at the sniper. They nodded and ran in separate directions, circling the opponent.

The Elite noticed the position of all of his opponents and predicted their movements. There was no hiding from him. He walked into a position his calculations said would be the center of them all. The elite lifted up both hands and brought them crashing down.

John understood the repercussions of the Quake Generator, counted half a second and shoved off from the ground. He angled himself and fired once again at the Elite. Samus spotted the movements, predicted the exact motion and timing of the Elite's attack and jumped. Before firing from the ground she used her pinky to finger a lever, the charge at the muzzle of her cannon turned white as the impact force of ten missiles was attached to her projectile and fired. Kelly had been watching the Elite from the sidelines. She knew to jump and nail it with her side arm. Linda noticed the others jumping, and jumped as well. Her timing was less perfect, and she got nailed nearly full force with the attack, but not before hitting the Pirate with her own blast.

The Elite roared under the combined forces of the vermin's attacks. He staggered forward, armor both crushed and melted after so many blows. The Elite charged up one last blast, aiming for the foe scum his last blast had hit. The plasma blast missed by five feet, but the wash from the attack hit it. With that the Pirate fell over, dead.

Samus stood there, looking at the Pirate and then walked off to Linda's side. She kept her movement perpendicular to the drop platform, keeping an eye out for more enemies. John and Kelly joined her.

"Lucky for her, her shields recharged fast enough to spare her from that last attack." Samus observed. She then turned her attention to the cliff edge where a drop ship had just come in. Four Spartans jumped out of its belly. Samus waved them over. Spartans- 039, 043, 093, and 104 jogged over to the group.

The four had come to drop in, just as Samus had ordered, but couldn't come in due to the energy barrier. They had been forced to watch as the other four took on the Elite without them.

"Reporting as ordered, sirs."

Samus nodded. "Okay, I'm going to say without a doubt that there will be more Elite Pirates waiting for us as we continue this mission."

"_More_ Elite Pirates?" Kelly asked. Linda got up, shook the disorientation from her head and listened to Samus.

"Yes, _more_. I've fought no less then five invading Pirate sections, back when the Elite Pirate Program was new. So, let me brief you a little more about the Elites. Their four attacks are short range, medium range, long range, and defense. The short range is a simple punch, stay out of range. I don't know what it will do to you. There medium range is their Wave Quake Generator, they have to charge energy by lifting up their arms before using it, either back off fifteen meters or jump six feet to avoid it. They're vulnerable while using this. Their third is using that plasma artillery cannon, again, dodge and attack. When they have their hand lifted in front of them, don't attack. All energy blasts will be absorbed for use in their weaponry. Just hold your fire." Samus paused before adding, "There can be some upgrades to their systems and a few wild cards. I'll let you know, hopefully before they're used." Samus was annoyed at herself for not mentioning this sooner. She was grateful that the Elite had been taken down before anyone had been seriously injured or killed.

Samus turned at a noise behind her. It was an Elite Pirate's roar. "Now then, let's take this one o-" Samus stopped when she noticed that the Elite did not engage them the second it hit the ground. Instead it moved from the platform. She noticed the cause a second later. It was a _second_ elite dropping down from the belly of the ship.

"That's new." Samus muttered before ordering, "Break up, keep them distracted." Samus noted that the energy barriers had replaced themselves the moment the second elite at appeared. The Spartans darted from their grouped position and flanked both Pirates.

The Elites moved with a coordination Samus hadn't witnessed in Pirate units before. They moved fifteen feet apart, and never came any closer to each other. Most times Pirates didn't care if their fellows got in the way of their attacks when trying to wipe her out, but these pirates _did_. And for some reason, this oddity bothered Samus and nagged at the back of her mind.

The Elites watched the humans run around them. They had miniature pistols on them. Using the thermal visor in their suits, the Elites saw that the guns glowed white. There was a consented roar of displeasure at the finding before they went on the offensive.

One of the Elites brought up its fists, charging up its Wave Quake Generator. As the Spartans anticipated the attack and jumped the other pirate targeted them with the plasma cannon on its back. It hit two of them. Their shields drained and they hit the dirt with a velocity nearly double that of the Elite's attack.

Samus frowned as she watched the revised tactic. She switched to her scanner and locked onto one of the Elites. A few seconds later the deep penetrating scanner had finished.


	29. Chapter 15 Of Reconcilliation 2

**Morphology: Elite Pirate Class II, Phazon infused pirate**

**The Elite Pirate program has changed and improved by a great deal since the first encounter. Their weapon systems have a faster charge cycle and have been enhanced in strength. The infusion with the Vertigo Phazon strand has been improved upon and both gives a higher yield of units produced and their augmentations have been exponentially increased.**

**Extreme caution recommended: The pirates have reverse engineered your Power Bomb system and the Elite Pirate can fire a high-yield projectile every minute. The charge system on the Elite Pirate is connected to the Power bomb system.**

«C'jinlor,» Samus whispered as she turned back to her Combat Visor. She released the charge on her plasma beam and fired it without hesitation at one of the Elites. Fire from the Spartans concentrated on the victimized Elite. It lifted up a hand, two-thirds of the plasma blasts were absorbed into its shielding.

It seemed to chuckle at them. Samus lowered to the ground, "Everyone! Get back!" She charged her Plasma Beam once more and hastily shot it at the Elite. The blast missed by a mere millimeter, but the rush of heat succeeded in gaining the Elite's attention. Both of them whirled on her, which was one more then Samus had wanted, but one more she was willing to accept.

Both Elites laughed at Samus. The other elite gave its fellow a nod. The Elite changed its firing vectors from one of the downed Spartans to a location near Samus. It knew Samus would anticipate and dodge a blow aimed directly at her. But, by firing somewhere she should go would increase the odds of the shot hitting the bounty hunter.

It fired, Samus didn't really wait to move before rushing away from her position. She watched its movement out of the corner of her eye. She saw it get closer to her instead of getting farther away. She realized what the Elite had done and had to respect the well-played move. However, she had one of her own. Samus stopped short, quickly calculated the track of the projectile, which was a pin-prick of light brighter then the sun, and leapt forwards.

The bomb exploded directly behind the hunter. She hadn't gotten away fast enough. The light from the explosion put everything into a bright contrast. Samus was nearly blinded as she was propelled forwards. She hit the ground, skidded and came to stop.

The explosive had blown two and a half tanks away. Samus rolled to the side and pushed off of the ground as hard as she could. She moved closer to the Pirates, however she was saved from a direct wash of plasma from the other Elite.

The Spartans had wasted no time in launching a counter attack. Samus had bought them the time to hit the Elites by distracting them and presenting herself as a target. They wouldn't waste such an opportunity. A barrage of miniature plasma bolts rained on an Elite's head. It roared and directed its attacks on the many assailants.

She landed on one knee and one foot. It took a second to regain her senses. She stood up and turned to examine her opponents. One had lost interest in her while the other focused on her as it came down with another earthquake. The bounty hunter barely had time to think as she jumped upwards to avoid the blast. The wave of energy brushed her legs and sent her into a tumble. Samus charged her plasma beam, broke her fall with her left arm, fell to the ground, rolled onto her back, fired at the Elite with a charged blast, and stood in one smooth motion.

"Watch out for the charged attack, it'll probably kill you."

The Spartans acknowledged her words and ran in randomized paths. Whenever they found an opportunity they would hit the Elites. The Elites held them at bay by alternating with the Quake attack, plasma beam and shields. As the fight dragged on into the second minute the Elites attacks grew more unified and attack opportunities had been greatly lessened. The Spartans and Samus were battered and hit, but they were recovering and moving better as well. It was a good stalemate, all combatants watching their opponents, moving a little so as not to become a stationary target.

One of the Elites absorbed another blast of plasma, lifting its arm up and activating the absorption units at the last second. It targeted one of the Spartans, 043-William, with the stolen power bomb cannon.

The ground a foot distant from Will melted in a white light. The force of the projectile imploding and then exploding flung the human two meters to the side. His shields gave out halfway through the attack. The temperature inside his suit rose by many tens of degrees. Third degree burns formed all over his right side. A healing agent was automatically injected into the burn sites to keep them clean and pain free.

A fury of plasma projectiles washed over the offending Elite's helmet. It melted and a charged missile from Samus broke through the plating. The Elite hollered and died.

The second elite advanced on John. It turned the barrier over the cliff off. John backed away from the pirate, heeding Samus's warning of staying out of range for a melee attack. He was already dangerously close to the edge, having run into such a position avoiding blasts from the Elites' artillery cannons. The noncom tried to calmly find an opening to run around the Pirate and somehow force it to fall down the cliff. Right now he was trying to figure out a way to distract it long enough to get away from this precarious position. The Elite had to be near dead, but it could topple and crush him, which is why he knew the others wouldn't attack him.

He stopped once he felt the back of his foot hit the edge. He looked to his left and his right and around the Elite. The Elite blasted both escape routes near the Spartan with plasma attacks. The ground exploded and melted. He could run, but he'd have to go closer and the elite could nail him. John checked the charge on his pistol, but the Elite activated its shields. It strode towards John and lifted its other hand.

The Master Chief prepared to jump forwards to avoid the punch; it couldn't reach that far down to attack him, he rationalized. Lying on the ground might be enough to-

"Chief, drop down. I'm going to kill that thing." He heard Samus say, cutting off his thoughts. John carefully considered her words as the elite brought its fist down. He put the sidearm to his side and dropped over the side of the cliff. John broke his fall by catching the edge with his hand. He didn't look down. If Samus was going to kill it, then it could kick him off the edge if he lay on the ground, or crush him.

Samus unleashed a super missile. The white hot energy slammed into the Elite's back, forcing it to stumble forwards off the cliff. She looked at Will, scanned his form, found he was still alive, and walked towards the cliff. John was just pulling himself back over the edge.

"I'm glad you trusted me enough to do that." She said.

"I'm glad you knew what you were doing." John countered before walking over to William. He switched to TEAMBIO and read up on his injuries.

Spartan-043 sat up. He shook his head and shakily stood. Will took a deep breath and stood firmer. "I thought you said that would kill me, Samus."

"Apparently, I was wrong." Samus flipped back to her scanner and rechecked him. The Chozo modifications to the suit would keep him together for the rest of this mission. But not if he took another blow like that. "Although," she added, "I wouldn't suggest doing that ever again."

"Wasn't planning on it."

"Good to hear." Samus turned to the gravity lift, "I guess that's how we get up. You guys ready to go?" Without waiting for an answer she condensed her arm cannon and freed her right hand to activate a transponder that took the place of Adam's AI chip in her armor on her left forearm. The Chozo had taken that from the Spartan's MJOLINIR armor. John took his cue and activated the one in the back of his helmet. This would tell the two AIs aboard _Migration_ that they were in position. The system would keep them AIs in contact with the humans up to a limited distance, of ten thousand kilometers, and allow them to be in two places at once.

A second later John felt a shock of cold hit him as Cortana activated the transmitter, allowing her to be both with the Spartan and in the Chozo ship at the same time. Samus felt Adam's presence in her mind as he did the same thing.

"Hello, Lady." Adam greeted.

"Chief." Cortana said, "Get everyone onto the platform, I'll activate the lift to bring you up."

The Spartans went onto the platform, wary of any surprises that might wait for them aboard the cruiser, and more importantly, the ones on their LZ.

Samus checked her shielding and ammunition counter. She had thirteen tanks and 225 missiles. That would, and should, be enough. "Lady, perhaps you should recharge your suit. We have no way of knowing what they've put on board that cruiser." Adam suggested at the same time.

"I'll be fine, Adam."

"But just in case...?"

Samus closed her eyes in annoyance. It was a wise idea to go back and take the time to recharge. But that would mean leaving the Spartans by themselves, vulnerable to pirate attacks. The thought was promptly shaken from her head. She had to stop thinking of them as the much weaker Federation Troops. The Spartans could probably be admitted as Space Hunters. "Chief, hold on a sec," Samus said as she activated the navigation path to the portable recharge station, "I need to recharge my shields, since they don't do that on their own."

"Alright."

Samus turned on her heel and ran out of the area. Within a minute energy beams were swirling about her suit, refilling the energy packs that sustained the suit's shielding. A minute later she was back on the landing pad.

As Samus walked onto the elevated platform, she felt the solid ground leave her feet. All the Spartans were ascending into the belly of the Covenant ship. The anti-gravity beam defied the laws of physics by making them rise in the air.

Kelly looked into the belly of the ship, their landing zone. The Spartan could only help but wonder what surprises lay in store for them. She had been on a Covenant ship before, when she had gotten her first set of armor. The areas were tight, cramped and confined. It was an unpleasant situation for most Spartans, especially her, as the restricted room meant less places and room to run. However, the smaller quarters meant that there couldn't be any Elite Pirates aboard to fight them.

The uncomfortable sensation in her stomach left as the gravity beam deposited the group on a platform that had formed under their feet once they were inside the ship.

The group, except Samus, immediately formed a tight circle. Samus ducked, out of the potential firing range of the Spartan behind her. She looked carefully at her radar in the upper left corner of her HUD.

"That's funny, no contacts." Samus switched to her thermals, she looked at the doors one by one. The radar couldn't get through the door, so she might not pick them up that way, however the thermal visor would show her any hot spots behind the metal sheets. They were there, as the hunter had expected, standing perfectly still behind one of the doors. "Strike that. 2 o'clock, my position. They're behind the door."

"Understood, everyone, keep an eye out for surprise attacks from the other entrances." John ordered.

John appraised the situation. The Covenant were going to release a counter attack on them in this small room. His Spartans could handle it, but he didn't like the cramped combat. The room looked like it was big enough to hold three elites, but there were cargo pods strewn around the ground. Perfect cover for his team, and their opponents.

The doors opened, many grunts, and a few elites came into the room. Plasma grenades were tossed at the human warriors, but they all either missed or were dodged. The plasma explosions still did some damage to their shields. Plasma bolts rained on the Spartans, warming, melting, and boiling metal plating and the cargo pods. Only a half managed to catch their targets.

The Spartans moved with quick efficiency. They opened fire on the Covenant, quickly taking out the grunts. Samus used her plasma beam to destroy the shielding on the elites, leaving them open for quick destruction by the other humans.

When the last Elite roared and fell to the ground John looked around. His team was alright. They had taken several blows, but there was no permanent damage to them. He caught Samus moving out of the corner of his eye. He turned to look at her. She was examining the room, occasionally lifting a hand up to turn a switch on the left side of her helmet.

He checked his motion tracker. Surrounding him were yellow dots. But on the edges there was a group of red. He whirled around just in time for the white lights around the door to flicker and the doors open. The Chief opened fire on the incoming pirates.

The other Spartans and Samus instantly reacted, also firing on the incoming group. A grunt lobbed a plasma grenade at Samus. It struck her left shoulder pad, and bonded there. A second later it blew up, sending Samus to the ground. Samus stood up, and killed the grunt with a missile. The blast had taken four energy tanks.

A minute later the enemy forces had been suppressed. After five more of the raids, the invaders still had control of the room. One of the doors remained unlocked.

"Quick, that way, Chief!" Cortana said, "I don't know how long-" the AI stopped as John waved all the Spartans to trek forwards. Whether or not the Covenant liked it, the group was on board the ship until they got the Oculus.


	30. Chapter 16 Of Elites

Hey guys. Look I'm back. Sorry it took so long to update. I just haven't been able to sit myself down to look at this story. But now inspiration hit and now I've got a few more chapters then this. I also had to stop because I really wanted to fight an Elite, but that meant starting a new Prime file. And well, I suck at FPS. I only like the stories of the games and some of the weapons, not big on the game play.

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**2303 Hours, August 31, 2552 (Military Calendar)**

**Surface of the ring, Inside **_**Truth and Reconciliation**_

The Spartans made their way through the inner bowels of the Covenant cruiser. Samus kept point. She insisted upon leading them through the ship, and always brought them where they needed to go. There would be brief skirmishes, but the maze of hallways ate their time. Their route twisted, turned, and sometimes went in the opposite direction they needed to go to press onwards.

John released the spent ammo clip from his assault rifle and replaced it with a fresh one. The pair of grunts and jackals they had just encountered had been taken down quickly. He checked the corridor and the group proceeded forwards. The proximity doors activated and opened to a large loading bay.

Samus held up a hand as she looked at the bay. Something was not right; she felt it in her gut. Samus checked the room with her assortment of visors and found nothing out of the ordinary. With some reluctance, she said that it was clear. Samus couldn't come up with a better reason for making them hang back there than "I have a weird feeling."

They marched in. There were a few Covenant cargo pods to the sides of the room. An electric energy barrier covered one of the bay doors. The bay was divided by a thirty-foot tall barrier that had narrow passageways on either end for people to pass through. It had three floors that made the area they were entering into, the bay floor, a shooting gallery.

There was movement from the barrier. An enormous figure dropped down. The floor vibrated under them. They all stared up at the thing, it was yet _another_ Elite Pirate. Samus turned down the polarization on her visor so that she could see it properly. It was missing the large pack on it back, the wave quake generator. In its stead, the Elite had another plasma artillery cannon.

Barriers climbed upwards and the door behind them locked into a closed position. They were stuck in the room. John was irritated as he looked around their fighting area, it was much too small to handle this thing properly. There was little room to run and avoid attacks. Of course, that was probably the point of making them fight the Elite in the loading bay.

"Alert." Cortana told him, "Calculations from the wave patterns of the landing indicate that another Elite Pirate jumped down to the other side of the loading bay."

"Well, it can't come over here then." He replied. The spaces that allowed passage were simply much too small for an Elite to go through and he didn't believe that it would be able to jump up and over the barrier.

Samus had already begun to attack the Elite Pirate with intermittent pulses from her Plasma Beam. "Don't worry too much, its Wave Quake Generator has been taken away. It has another cannon, though, so step lively." She told them while avoiding a direct counterattack from the Elite.

Stepping lively was high on all of the Spartans' agendas before she had said that. It had doubled in position afterwards. The second cannon meant that the Elite would be able to fire plasma at them almost without pause. And it did so. The battle was difficult for the invaders, but they managed to down the beast. It fell and was incinerated by the heat generated from its plasma cannons.

Samus had taken nearly another direct blast from its secondary firing system. Her shielding had dropped down five tanks during the battle. She jogged over to Fred, who had been hit by one of the Elite's punches just before it had died.

Fred was just starting to sit up, fighting off the dizzy feeling that had rooted itself to his reeling head. He shook off all forms of confusion and prepared once more to fight. Samus pointed towards some of the Cargo pods, which made excellent cover. Adam had informed her about the extra Elite Pirate. She looked at John.

"What do you think?" She asked. Adam had told her, upon inquiry, that Cortana had told John about the second Elite Pirate.

John understood the question. He ordered, "Everyone, rest in some cover before we proceed."

Samus's scanner was locked on Spartan-104. There were mild bruises a broken rib, nothing that he would admit to or be slowed down by.

All the Spartans did as they were told. Samus huddled in a small corner. She started a counter on her HUD, after one minute had passed she stood up. Waiting was bothering her. The scanner passed over all the Spartans. They all had burns and bruises from the Elite, Will was by far the worst, but after a minute they should had been ready to go. She would have given Federation troopers five minutes and herself ten seconds. One minute seemed like it should be enough.

John had just stood up as well. He whistled, and the Spartans jumped out of their cover. They readied their pistols and stood, waiting for further instructions.

The Elite on the other side of the loading bay regretted jumping down so soon. He had heard his comrade give the death cry and stopped receiving the data from his suit's systems. That meant that the invaders had killed his companion. He wished that he had not jumped down to the other side. Now they could take the time to recover and rest after fighting one before moving on to him. Had he waited to jump, he could have confronted them right after they had finished with the dead Elite. His odds would have been vastly improved then if he gave the Hunter even one second to rest.

In this manner he passed a minute, waiting uneasily for them to come through. The barriers had been dropped so that they could move onto him. After one minute had expired, he heard the shifting of armor and the stifled sounds of people moving as they came towards him. He hoped that they unaware of his presence, the element of surprise might give him an edge.

They came in two groups, one from either side of the separator. That had been the Master Chief's idea. The two groups should throw it off guard long enough for them to get in one salvo of hits before the fighting broke out. Samus, Grace, Isaac, and Linda whirled around the edge farthest from the bay force fields. John, Fred, Kelly, and Will appeared simultaneously from the other side.

The only got in half a salvo before the Elite activated his defenses. Apparently, they had been aware of his presence before stumbling upon him. Of course, he shouldn't have expected anything else from the Hunter.

While the Spartans took on the second Elite, Rlo'enaitha hurried to get the Oculus out of the possibility of recapture.

"What's taking you so long to remove the Oculus?" Enaitha bellowed at a Pirate scientist.

"This is delicate machinery. Putting it in a precarious position could unwittingly set this device off. It will take fifteen more minutes to settle it into the transport device."

Enaitha didn't bother mentioning that it might take less then five minutes for the Hunter and those other humans to rush in here and destroy them all and reclaim the Oculus. He only waited as patiently as he could. He also kept an eye out on the data streams that were routed to another copper rod that he held.

John lifted his pistol and fired a round at the Elite. The shot melted the armoring right around the Elite's eye and destroyed the ocular as well. The Elite hollered in pain, now half blind.

He glowered at the human that had dealt the injury and lifted up its arm to absorb yet another volley of plasma bursts. It aimed the high-yield explosion directly where the Master Chief was running to.

When John noticed the bright burst of light coming towards him, he leapt forwards. The toes of his boots just skirted the edge of the explosion and he slid forwards on the floor of the Covenant cruiser. He twisted to the side. The noncom pushed himself off the ground with one hand and fired the pistol with the other. This time the shot traced through the heavily melted helmet of the Elite, burning a path through and through. He placed the pistol on its hip holder and brought out his assault rifle.

The other Spartans switched their weapons as well.

"Samus, do you always go up against things like this?" Cortana asked.

"No, not always Elite Pirates. Did that four or five times. But against things a lot bigger then myself, yeah, all the time." Samus replied as she moved forwards. This instilled a sense of awe in the Spartans.

John found himself very grateful for having Samus as an ally and not a foe. The fact that she was a good fighter did not faze him, nor did it affect the other Spartans. However, the fact that she was so used to fighting enemies bigger then herself to the point where she had obviously become inured to the fact was amazing. Going up against Elite Covenant still bothered the Spartans. One Spartan would have died fighting an Elite Pirate with all probability, but she had survived, many times.

However, he couldn't help but attribute the majority of this awe-inspiring skill to her powered suit. She had proven herself to be on the same level as a Spartan in thinking ability, leadership, aim, tactics, strength, and speed. The rift on the battlefield between a Spartan and Samus had to come from her suit. It had extra weapon modulations and abilities that greatly outpaced anything the Covenant or humans could come up with, and probably the Space Pirates as well.


	31. Chapter 16 Of Elites 2

The group hurried through the twisting corridors and headed up for the most part. Then they came to the second floor of the loading bay. There was minor resistance that was dealt with in a few minutes. The humans cleared the bay and Cortana instructed them to take the next door the came upon on their right. 

John took the lead while Samus warded off the Hunters behind them. The remaining six Spartans were divided between watching John and helping Samus. The opened door revealed a clear hallway. The Master Chief and his group of three Spartans trekked forwards to clear the path while the other four members of the search team covered their backs.

It took another ten minutes of ascension before they reached the top floor of the shuttle bay. All forms of resistance were quickly dealt with.

"The Oculus should be near here." Cortana told Adam while using the banks of the _Migration_ to calculate the incoming data stream. 

"Yes, Samus's auxiliary scanners indicated a spike in low-level radiation a few seconds ago that are consistent with the Oculus," Adam replied. He sent the data coming in from Samus's suit to the other AI. Both felt the part of being in two places weird. They were used to multi-tasking, being in more then one place at once. They did it all the time, it was the only way to use their computing power efficiently.

Yet, even for Cortana the rift was weird. She was in the Master Chief's suit and in the _Migration_ at once. There was a microsecond lag in her processing because of the distance between her and the Chief. It irritated her because it was a lag, but not because she was unable to compensate for it. However, there were strong points to this division.

Cortana had been able to, in seconds, absorb the data that had taken Samus years to collect. She had access to a computer system designed by a race much more advanced in science than the Covenant. That data, the computer system, and the data the Adam sent her from Samus's suit helped her to aid the group much more efficiently than she could on the field.

It took her a second to compute the general location of the Oculus, pinpointed down to a tolerance of 97. She sent the data to the part of her in the Chief's suit and took control of his speakers.

"The Oculus should be over there," She told John as she placed a NAV marker on his HUD.

John noticed with some slight irritation that the marker pointed that he should turn the group around. He was grateful for the AI's help, as it would save them time in the alien ship, which meant, hopefully, a lower amount of resistance as they proceeded.

"Alright," he said, "Cortana says that we took a wrong turn." He turned the group around and lead them down the corridor he had just he had decided not to go through only a second before.

As they approached a set of blast doors they were accosted by a brace of Elites. The blue and red armored Covenant roared upon spotting the group.

The veteran Elite primed a plasma grenade and threw it towards the group. The sticky fuming blue orb landed on the ground next to Linda's feet. She fell back and pulled out her sniper rifle. One round painted the area of door behind the red armored elite's with blue blood and bits of brain and bone.

The other Elite was felled by combined fire from the other five intruders. Everyone dropped back against the wall as the white edge of the doors flashed. Their motion detectors had gone off, getting feed back from the other side. Their weapons took up different firing positions to cover the entire lower half of the opening. Samus merely took to looking at her radar for contacts, feeling out of place with the group cohesion that the Spartans had.

The metal doors slid into the walls nearby. Five Elites, a pair of Space Pirates, and three grunts came into the hall with their arms up to bear. Rounds of automated projectiles and energy blasts were exchanged between the groups.

Within a few seconds all the aliens were corpses on the ground. The intruders carefully walked into the next room. They met with heavy opposition. There was a controlled firefight that went on for minutes.

John's rifle counter hit zero just as the last Elite went down. He slapped in a fresh clip of ammunition, noting that he was running low on supplies for his rifle. By his count there were along the lines of fifty bodies strewn on the floor. He looked back at his team, all of whom were replacing the clips in their arms.

Then he saw Samus. For a moment he had mistaken her for a piece of machinery due to how still she was standing. She lifted her arm cannon upwards and seemed to examine it. Then he noticed the wisps of smoke that emanated from the muzzle. Given the advancements in Chozo technology he hadn't expected their weapons to overheat.

The Master Chief shrugged it off and left Samus to her own devices to take a very good look at his surroundings. During the fight he had only searched for cover to duck behind before leaping out at one of the Covenant or Pirates, but he hadn't really _noticed_ the room they were in aside from its massive size.

There was frayed wiring everywhere and a large amount of the cargo pods that the Covenant used scattered with a great frequency about the room.

"Cortana?" He asked.

"What is it, Chief?" She responded a moment later.

"Is it in here?" It would take, he guessed, five minutes to give the gigantic room a preliminary sweep over in search of the Oculus. Ten if they searched every nook and cranny. He did not want to waste that time unless he was _sure_ that it was in here. The NAV point had disappeared the moment they had reached the blast doors.

"Yes." Cortana replied without hesitation, "By my calculations it will be," She tagged an area with a NAV marker, "over there. Search radius of approximately five meters."

"Alright." John said and then turned to the group. He gave them the NAV pointer Cortana had put on his HUD. "It should be within five meters of that spot. Keep your eyes peeled for any stragglers." It was folly to believe that just because they had taken out the majority of the opposition that there were no more aliens waiting to ambush them.

The Spartans followed the NAV point while Samus straggled behind, arm placed on her cannon, watching her radar more then her main visor. Her arm cannon limited her ability to push things aside and do general grunt work, so she was planning on leaving the others to search while she'd keep an eye peeled for stragglers. Their motion trackers couldn't detect stationary enemies after all.

During the entire journey thus far she had lost the greater part of her energy tanks. There was still a number more then sufficient to get out of this place in one piece, especially if the Pirates didn't have any more elite surprises in store for them. But had she not gone back to recharge her shielding she surmised that she would have died on the return trip.

"Found something, sir." Grace said, distracting Samus. The Chozo warrior looked in curiosity as the soldier pulled something out from under a dented cargo pod. A cargo pod one of her missiles had knocked over, Samus noted.

She saw the black sphere that consumed all light, except the hairline of white that marked light hitting it. Lessons of when she was six came back to her, she had only seen these things in pictures. But without a doubt that was what they had come after. Samus had only known about its presence on the ship when the damage reports had come in and reported it missing.

"Good job. That's it." Samus knelt next to the Spartan, looking at the Oculus in awe.

She couldn't help but ask, "Is it heavy?" Samus was barely able to keep the shock from her voice. Despite the fact that she had known that she would see it, it still shocked the bounty hunter to view it in person. Samus had learned that they weighed many hundreds of kilos due to the equipment and explosive power that it contained.

Grace took a moment to respond, "It would be cumbersome in battle, sir."

"Then we'll rotate carrying it." John said as he came up. All the Spartans had heard Grace's announcement and Samus's response. "You're up first." He told Grace and then ordered the group to leave.

It took them five minutes to get back to the third floor of the shuttle bay. John ordered Isaac to take the Oculus from Grace.

"Hey, is our ride out there?" Samus asked Adam.

"Yes, Lady. If you can turn off the force fields for the shuttle bays, I'll call them in. Cortana will guide you through the process."

The conversation had been over the speakers that projected out of her suit so that none would be left in the dark. Cortana began talking at that moment.

"Right. Chief, you need to go down to the bottom floor of the shuttle bay to disengage the force fields. I've hacked the Covenant's battlenet but there needs to be manual feed back."

The rest of the return trip took a good half hour. Their backtracking was hindered by the five-minute pauses to shift carriers of the Oculus. It wasn't because they needed such frequent breaks, but it was to conserve their overall strength by alternating members of the group that did not fight.

Despite the shifts, by the time they made it back to the loading bay no one had much ammunition left in their conventional weapons. They were also uncomfortable with the smaller plasma pistols due to a lack of strength in even the charged shots.

"Over there, Chief." Cortana directed. John left the others behind to go over to the control panel she had indicated. Without direction from her he picked out the button he needed to press. "Right. They'll come back up in three minutes."

From the _Migration_ Adam signaled the pilot of the Chozo drop ship that was on standby a kilometer away, waiting for his orders to pick up the eight armored fighters.

"Insertion team ready for pick up. You have a three minute window to get into the shuttle bay." Adam told him.

"Right, right." He said as he powered on the drop ship and flew towards the Covenant cruiser. Within a minute he was flying into the shuttle bay.

"Everyone get aboard, double time!" John barked.

The Spartans didn't require much more of an invitation to get aboard the ship. Once everyone was seated the pilot took off, a brace of Covenant Elites had just come into the room, firing. Silver shields flickered to life and absorbed the blasts as the ship sped out into the night.

John looked over at Will who had taken the greatest blows by far, and early on in the mission. "Are you alright?" He asked over a private com line.

"Nothing much, sir." Will replied. His teeth were gritted, the pain medication was beginning to subside. John caught it in his voice.

"You are to report to Doctor Hasley immediately upon return."

"Yes, sir."


	32. Chapter 17 Of Cartographers

**0145 Hours, August 31, 2552 (Military Calendar)**

**Surface of the ring, Medical Bay Alpha of **_**Migration**_

Doctor Hasley placed her glasses onto the surface of her newly acquired desk and rubbed at her half-blinded oculars. There was a resigned sigh from the doctor as she replaced the corrective lenses onto the bridge of her nose only a moment later.

She was looking over the biosigns on the Spartans. What was frustrating her so was the fact that only William had come to see her after the group had returned from the mission, with a noted amount of reluctance. The other Spartans were not so badly injured, in fact four of the group members had come from the mission with so few injuries that she would have liked to call it unscathed. _Would_ have liked, she noted as she ran through the lists again. Then again, those were such minorities that they would heal on their own before they went out again.

Which they were planning on doing after getting six hours of sleep. Doctor Hasley was not inclined to let any of them leave again until they rested. The only way that order had been carried out was the fact that both Captain Keyes and Samus had agreed to the idea. John had acquiesced her request afterwards.

Doctor Hasley frowned as she recalled that she did not know the specifics of their next mission. She pursed her lips and activated the COM line with one of the AIs. "Cortana?"

"Yes, doctor?" The AI responded immediately.

"Could you tell me where the Spartans are going on their next mission?"

"Of course," Cortana said as her hologram appeared in the seat opposite the doctor. Her arms were folded, "They're going to someplace that's said to harbor the Silent Cartographer. Once they get there we'll be able to find the Control Room which the Covenant were overheard saying that it holds the key to using the weapon Halo has. We want to find that before the Covenant or Pirates."

Doctor Hasley nodded. If Halo had a weapon of any scale that the Covenant or Pirates could use on any level, it would be bad for the humans. The aliens were already juggernaut races in their own rights. Any augmentation to their superior technology would obliterate any hope that the humans had left.

"Thank you, Cortana. That's all I wanted to know. You can leave now."

"Of course, Doctor." Cortana said before disappearing.

Doctor Hasley pushed the bridge of her glasses farther up her nose and then turned on the COM lines for the Spartans.

"Spartans –104, -058, and –039, report to the medical bay."

She turned off the mike and returned to looking over the medical logs of the Spartans. Some would take an hour to recover, others would require more. She glanced up into the medical bay beyond, Will was lying on one of the tables. She knew by his vitals that he was awake. Doctor Hasley stood up, pushing herself up by placing her hands on the edges of the desk and went over to the Spartan. It would take a little while, two hours at the least, before he was better.

Six hours later saw John walking down the corridors of the Chozo ship. He had just gotten up from his required amount of sleep. His suit was down in the engineering bay, being attended by several of the _Migration's_ microbots. The Master Chief felt exposed and uncomfortable without his armor, however, he knew that the suit needed to be tended to. It was impossible to take a shower with the powered armor on in any case.

There was a faint whir of holographic particles forming behind him, perhaps only a foot away.

"Hello, Chief." Came Adam's voice. The hologram moved to take a position next to the noncom.

"Adam," John said.

"Could you do me a favor?" Adam continued after a second's pause, "I need someone to wake Samus. She disabled the alarm and only the presence of someone a little more alive will snap her out of her reverie. You just happened to be closest to her quarters," Adam pointed, and a strip of lighted panels lit up highlighting the path that he should take, "That way. Thank you."

John continued to look in the area Adam's hologram had been for a split-second before he turned his attention to the lighted pathway. There was no arguing with the computer. He followed the pathway, which cut off by a proximity door, for a minute. It took a second to register the Master Chief's presence and open.

The soldier looked into the room, the lights were off, but it didn't matter. His augmented eyes adapted to the dim lighting and he spotted Samus.

Samus was sitting cross-legged on the floor in the middle of the room. She had her hands clasped and hooked over her legs. A cluster of something white that was barely glowing was gathered around her on the floor. Her eyes were closed and she seemed to be deep in thought. Then John noticed that her breathing was regular, deep, and steady, exactly the breathing pattern of someone that was asleep.

John walked into the room. The lights seemed to have been locked off. However, a slight breeze rustled the cluster of white and it vanished. John saw that it was a gathering of down. At that moment Samus's eyes snapped open. She saw John and jumped to her feet.

"Hello, Chief." She greeted and walked over to him. "Time, Adam?"

"Samus." He responded.

"Eight hundred hours, Lady." Adam replied.

"Good." She said, "Thanks for waking me, Chief."

"You were asleep?"

"Chozo mental technique. Puts the user into a state of semi-consciousness. The only thing that will wake them aside from a very loud noise, is the slightest disturbance in the immediate area." She told him. "So, ready to find this Silent Cartographer?"

"Yes." He said.

"Who's going aside from you and me?"

"Kelly, Fred, Linda, and Anton."

Samus nodded. She tried to place the names he had just listed. Kelly was the fast one. Linda was the one that always had the sniper rifle. Fred had gone with them on that last mission and had been in charge of the second squad of Spartans. She didn't immediately recognize Anton's name. Then Samus remembered that Anton was one of the Spartans that had met up with the Chozo Ghosts.

In twenty minutes the rest of the group had been gathered up. Three other Spartans would be accompanying the group. However, they would stay and keep the LZ secured so that the main fighting force would have a safe area to return to after they completed the mission.

"What does this ship have in the way of LRVs?" John inquired as they walked into the loading bay.

"I guess we might need one," Samus said as she trailed off in thought. "There's one type. Holds up to three people. Five if comfort isn't a question. Eight if you're feeling creative. Adam, could you please have another drop ship bring it in when we call for it?"

"Of course, Lady" The AI replied. "Now then, your drop ship has been fully loaded and is waiting for you to enter."

John nodded and looked at the seven Spartans that were mustered by the weapon's rack. "Everyone ready?" He asked.

"We're ready, sir." Fred said and picked up the emergency plasma pistol. He looked at Samus, "Do we need to take these with us again?"

"Yes. I understand that it's difficult carrying the three weapons. But you need to take that with you and unless you want to drop another weapon so you have just the two, you'll be taking three."

Anton hefted a rocket launcher onto his back. He carried a battle rifle in addition to the smaller handgun. John had chosen Anton to go with them on this mission because he had spent more time training in fighting on the ground then any other Spartan. The Master Chief had decided that he might be a good choice for moving about in an unknown world.

"Let's go, then," Samus said. The other Spartans moved wordlessly through the loading bay and got into the drop ship that was hovering half a foot above the ground.

They settled into the Chozo craft and one marine flew them out of the bay. As they neared their destination Samus reviewed her logs records on the Covenant, the other Spartans, and the new Pirate technology. As they approached their target she examined the Spartans gathered in the bay. Only five out of the eight armored humans there would be going with her. And the Master Chief, she reminded herself. Spartan 117 was not weak and was co-leader of this operation, Samus told herself for what was possibly the hundredth time.

"Okay. We're here." The marine shouted back at them. "LZ looks a little warm. I'm bugging off once you guys are out."

"Alright. Everyone, get ready for a hot landing." John ordered. The other Spartans gathered up their gear and extra ammunition.

Samus walked over to the front and examined their target area. It was an island, she noticed, and they were going to land on a strip of beach. She tagged a spot near the center of the island, twenty minute's jog from their drop zone. "Drop the packages here and there when we land," she told him.

"Right, sir." Samus walked back over to the drop hatch.

"So, who wants out first?" She asked. Kelly stepped forwards.

"I'd like to go first, sir. I'll be out of the way fastest."

John nodded to show his approval of the decision. "Good." Samus said, "Hit the green button, marine."

He searched the console with one eye and pressed the button near his thumb. There was a whistling sound as the hatch on top of the drop ship opened. Samus leapt into the air, grabbed a handle near the hatch to change her direction, curled her legs into her chest and flew out of the top. She was greeted with bolts of plasma. It scored the ship's shielding and her own but didn't hit the metal surface of either target. She aimed and fired a missile in the direction of the aliens. It arced; hit its mark, killing the alien.

Samus hit the dirt at the same time as Kelly did. Kelly sprung to the side and another Spartan dropped down. It was Anton. He rolled to the side, unleashing a payload of rockets into the cluster of aliens. A Spartan took a flying leap out of the top and twisted in mid air, firing her sniper rifle at a group of Pirates, downing them all with headshots.

In less then a minute the remaining five Spartans were out of the drop ship. There was a bright green glow under the drop ship's belly. A metallic device, one meter in diameter rested like a sewer cover on the beach. The ship flew off towards the center of the island.

Three minutes later they had secured the LZ.


	33. Chapter 17 Of Cartographers 2

"So, Chief, which way do you want to go?" Samus inquired. During the brief firefight the Spartans had moved down the beach to a large structure that offered shade from the mid-day sun. There was one section of beach that moved curled around the cliff to their left and another on the right. 

John indicated the left run and ordered, "Spartans get ready. Cortana," he said as he activated his communication with the ship, "Can we get that LRV now?"

"Yes, Chief. It's on its way." The AI replied. Then she stole the use of the external speakers, "Samus," The bounty hunter faced John, "you said that the LRV could seat eight people. I've run through all possible permutations, it can only hold five."

"I said it could hold up to eight if you're feeling creative. There's an electromagnetic railing around the outside of the vehicle. It's got the right frequency and strength for my suit to latch onto it."

At that moment another one of the Chozo transport ships appeared. There was a green glow on the beach where they had first landed. A vehicle two meters across and three in length materialized. It was made from an orange metal. A strip of something that looked like caution tape was engraved around the sides of the light reconnaissance vehicle. There was a gunner's post in the back; a swiveling cannon signified the mount. The driver's side was on the right and the passenger's on the left, and behind them, in front of the mount, just enough room for two people.

Samus pointed at John, "Why don't you drive, Chief? I need to hang from the side, and you've shown the most intuition for alien technology." Samus was pointing this out because she knew none of the other Spartans would be able to figure out the controls.

Samus had watched the Master Chief as they went through the Pirate ship. Often times, while her scanner had still been translating the languages on the holographic displays to figure out the controls, he had just walked over and pressed a button. It was, of course, a great humiliation to her, as she should have shown the same instincts that he had. But she noticed it about the Chozo technology on Ulj'koji and in the Covenant ship while the other Spartans didn't know what to do. Of course, that could have been simply the fact that Cortana was inside his armor, but she didn't believe that to be so.

"Alright," John said and got into the driver's seat. He looked over the controls, they seemed fairly elementary to him. The normal acceleration and brake petals were MIA along with the steering wheel, but had been replaced with holographic panels in the same area. Many buttons lined the "dashboard" in front of him. As he looked over them, he just got the feeling of what they were, mainly if he should touch them or not.

"That switch to your-" Cortana began but was cut out as John pressed the button. There was a slight hum as the vehicle jumped half a foot into the air and began to bounce gently in the wind currents. He assumed that was the equivalent of "ignition"

Kelly got into the seat beside him, Linda and Fred piled in the corners behind the front seats, Anton got on the mount. Samus braced her free hand on the side of the LRV, bringing her left leg from the knee down up to the stripe. John pressed a lever and Samus's leg was effectively glued to the side. Balancing herself carefully, the warrior brought her other knee up into position so that her calf was pressed against the chassis.

"Right," she said, tightening her grip on the side of the vehicle. She wouldn't fall off the vehicle if she let go, however, she would be dragged violently along, head bouncing into things. "Just don't slam into anything on this side, alright?"

John nodded and examined his controls. Before Cortana was able to speak again he had put the thing into motion, carefully at first. After a few seconds of slight experimentation, he felt he had a good enough understanding of the thing's reaction time, which was near instantaneous. They moved along with great speed down the coast of the island.

"Wait!" Cortana said after the first turn, "There's Covenant and Space Pirate activity just ahead."

As they moved along they came under enemy fire. Anton unloaded a payload of energy bolts on them in machine gun fashion. Linda's sniper rounds cracked through the air, stilling one or two enemies for every time she pulled the trigger. Kelly lobbed a grenade at them, stilling five enemies and then switched to her assault rifle. Fred downed many of them. Samus pushed herself upwards so that she could get a clear shot over the Master Chief's head. John simply drove onwards, up the hill. There was no use wasting time or ammunition on them, however none were left by the time they were over the crest of the incline.

As they came around the turn they were greeted with another large structure. "There! Inside that cliff wall. I'll bet that the Cartographer is somewhere in that facility."

John drove them close to the entrance of the structure and leapt out, being sure to free Samus from the side of the vehicle. He pulled out his gun, leveled it, and fired at the grunts that had started to attack them. He heard Samus hit the ground and felt the static in the air as she began to charge her Wave Beam. The other Spartans had gotten either out of the vehicle or were using it for cover.

A bunch of Elites charged at the group of fighters and were taken down. Flying Pirates flew up and sent a flurry of blasts at their position. There was something akin to a miniature thunder blast as Samus activated her Wave Buster. As they dived towards the ground one came uncomfortably close to John. He rolled to the side to avoid the attack. Bits of the Pirate's destroyed suit pinged off of his shields and drained them a hairbreadth.

Samus and Kelly worked their way forward with John to one of the three entrances that led them into the cliff. They worked their way through the Elites and grunts that were there to greet them. More came from inside the facility.

"Covenant resistance is unusually high," Cortana noted, "Be careful but continue on." She told them.

John opened TEAMCOM, "Fred you're in charge of Red Team. Stay there and keep more of them from coming in from behind us."

"Yes, sir." Fred said reluctantly, irritated that he was left behind again.

Blue Team walked down a ramp to their right, crouching low to the ground to keep themselves as small of targets as possible. They turned the corner with John the farthest out. There were no enemies down the next ramp either. They crept down a third ramp as well. Halfway down the incline the ceiling revealed a group of aliens.

Firing broke out. A gold armored elite stood behind a door, holding a sword made of plasma.

"Don't let them close that door!" Cortana said.

"Easier said then done," Samus thought. She ignored the rest of the enemies, letting John and Kelly's combined fire make corpses of the aliens. She sprinted down the corridor from the mid point of the ramp. Her Speed Boost kicked in and she ran into the Elite just as the doors became too small for her to fit through.

The Elite staggered backwards from the force of the impact. Its shields flickered and died. Samus stopped and pressed a button near the door, releasing the locks. She fell to the ground as John opened fire on the recovering alien. It gave a roar as it died.

"Sir." Fred's voice said over TEAMCOM.

"Yes?"

"Almost eighty aliens just showed up, two hunter pairs."

"Get inside and get down here."

"Yes, sir."

It took only half a minute for the three Spartans to catch up. Linda stepped over a grunt corpse as she entered the narrow hallway. John locked the door behind her.

"Not good for fighting." She noted about the size of the corridor.

"Nor is this," Samus said, calling their attention to her. She had wandered off to the right. Samus stood on the very edge of a cliff. John walked over to her. There was a stray piece of rubble on the ground. He kicked it over, it hit the level below after several seconds. Along with that sound there was another.

The sound of plasma cannons warming up. The other Spartans had appeared near the two. They looked around them for the source. Green lights appeared everywhere around them almost in a complete circle. Then they realized that the green specks were actually Covenant plasma weapons.

"So," John asked Samus, since they were thoroughly out of escape options, "got any brilliant plans?"

"Not yet." She said. Her shields might be able to take the damage. If she could Screw Attack over to some of the positions she might be able to take out half of them so there would be a slim survival rate for the others. It was a long shot and almost perfectly guaranteed not to work. So she glanced back, the hallway behind them also had Covenant soldiers piled ten deep but not clustered. Perhaps if they made their way back to the short corridor with the door they could make it out alive.

"Fall down," Adam suggested.

"What?" Everyone, including Samus asked at once.

"Adam, you do realize how far of a drop that is." Samus said more then asked.

"Yes, but if they drop down in clusters you could detonate a morph ball bomb to break their fall, momentarily. You'd only need to do so twice. Their suits have been modified enough to take the fall."

"So can my suit. Getting them back up would be a problem..."

"There is no time to explain now. Just do it. Any objections, Lady?"

"Right." Samus said, "On it." She quickly calculated some figures. "Groups of two and one loner to start off with. After the first jump go down every half a second. Straight line from where I drop from. First drop .75 seconds after me."

With that she turned into her suit's other mode and dropped off.

"Do it, Chief." Cortana ordered.

"Fred and Kelly. Linda and Anton." He said, grouping them together. He trusted Samus's judgment and Cortana's. They knew what they were doing, he hoped. And with that he stepped over the edge directly where Samus had gone off. He heard Kelly and Fred step over and the next explosion caught them. Then came Linda and Anton. After that was the blast of plasma hitting where the group had been when the blasts had been fired.

There was a flash of bright blue light, his shields flared and died down to two-thirds of a charge. Two more explosions. Two seconds later he was hit with another one. There were two more blasts. He hit the ground and ducked to the side. Moments later Kelly and Fred hit the ground, they darted forwards to make room for Linda and Anton.

"So, Adam, where are we-" Samus began to ask and then she noticed the area they were in. It was huge. Her radiation counter had spiked. The source was the blue jelly with a white coral-like structure inside it that issued a harsh crackling noise. There was a containment pod holding an Elite Pirate ahead of them. «C'jinlor»

"Linda, that Sniper Rifle has a ranging device, right?"

"Yes," She said pulling the weapon out to examine it.

"Good, check the range to that pod." Samus directed.

"Sure thing, sir. But given their size it'll only be about twelve to seventeen meters." As she said that she raised the tip of the rifle to focus on the Elite's pod. After a moment Linda frowned and brought the rifle down to examine it. "Must be broken," she admitted with uncharacteristic annoyance.

"Why?" Samus asked, eyeing the Elite's pod.

"It gave me a distance of seventy meters."

Fred spoke up, "But at that distance that thing would have to be..."

"An Omega Pirate." Samus whispered, barely loud enough for the group to hear her.


	34. Chapter 18 Of Omegas

0905 Hours, September 1, 2552 (Military Calendar)

Fingshee…that wouldn't be the word I would think of when in Samus's or any of the Spartans' positions…but whatever. It makes me giggle.

I'd like to apologize for making this confusing or hard to follow since…and…well….um….the length since I last updated. I haven't been inspired lately. Yeah, I know. It sucks. Sorry to keep y'all waiting so long. (y'all?)

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**0905 Hours, September 1, 2552 (Military Calendar)**

**Inside of the ring, Facility that holds the Silent Cartographer**

"A what?" Fred asked.

"An Omega Pirate," Samus repeated, trying to brush off the chill that had just run down her spine. "Downsized I think. Adam are you there?"

"Yes, Lady?" He replied. "Glad you survived the fall."

"Yeah...did you know about this?"

"No, Lady. I didn't. But to get back up I don't think that there is a way to avoid it."

"Just as you jumped off I managed to decipher some of the Pirate messages saying something about an Omega Pirate, and I was going through your logs to find out about it." Cortana said, "If you could brief them about what will happen during the battle to prepare them..."

"Fine." Samus said, "An Omega Pirate is the pinnacle of Pirate Phazon Mutation also known as their Elite project. Phazon is that blue radioactive material. Do yourself a favor and don't step into it. Your suits can't handle it. The Omega is just like an Elite, only bigger and has two cannons and the wave quake generator and presumably a power bomb generator. All attacks are bigger and more powerful, it has Phazon shields, tough to break. Same idea as an Elite, plasma or rocket launcher. Once we get rid of the shielding it will disappear from normal vision, aim where I do at that point. This will take a while and I didn't fare so well against him last time. Oh, expect him to call friends down when his shields fail."

"Down-sized a bit? Last time?" Anton echoed.

"Yeah, I've only had the misfortune of fighting an Omega once. I'm not sure about the size thing, I'll let you know if I even make it to his ankles this time around."

Samus checked her shields and frowned. She was missing five tanks out of twenty. She hung back, "You guys ready?"

"Sure." Kelly said and the others agreed with her.

Samus walked forwards and got closer to the behemoth. "Yeah, little smaller, by a foot." She informed them. Samus raised her arm cannon towards the thing's head as she got close enough. Flames seemed to appear in its eyes. It roared, shattering the tempered glass that served as its pod. The Omega Pirate spotted Samus even in her black armor. It roared and pointed its right hand at the Chozo warrior.

The Omega Pirate then noticed the others in the room. Seven other pests. He walked towards Samus. It was all the warrior could just to back away from the crushing feet.

Rlo'Enaitha stood at attention just inside the bridge by a huge set of sliding doors six hours before hand. He was waiting to be let in to talk with Ridley. The doors to the dragon's quarters slid open. He walked through, fully expecting to be killed on the spot. Still, the Pirate officer knelt before his commander.

«**Master Ridley. You called for me.**»

«**Yes I did. You failed me. You were supposed to keep Aran from regaining possession of the Oculus.**»

«**The scientists were unable to move the device fast enough, Master Ridley. I was well aware of her progress and trying to leave before she found it. It just required time which we did not have available.**»

«**Excuses!**» Ridley roared.

«**Master Ridley, give one more minute of your time.**»

«**Are you ordering me?**»

«**No, Master Ridley. But let me explain. She will head to the Silent Cartographer. Our scans show that we could set up an Omega Pirate in that area, Covenant obliging. With the new system that he is being outfitted with, he could easily crush Aran as it will not show up on her scanners. Her comrades would not survive the fall.**»

«**But what if she survives? Samus Aran has shown unusual cunning when it comes to our fighters.**»

«**She would be unable to get back up to the surface.**»

«**Fine, but do not fail me again, Rlo'Enaitha.**»

«**Thank you, Master Ridley.**»

Enaitha stood where the plasma blasts had scored the Forerunner plating. The Omega Pirate, with some difficulty, had been brought down there. The data feed from the Omega's suit was coming in on a holographic projector. He snarled as he found out that the Spartans had not died on the landing.

"Troops, get ready to move once he calls for back up."

There was a chorus of affirmatives as they moved into position.

Samus let a Super missile hit the boulder of Phazon that had been covering the Omega's right bicep. Another projectile hit the Phazon on its left leg. The Omega Pirate roared from the twin blasts and stared angrily down at the group. It lifted the left arm, creating its energy absorption barrier.

John lowered his pistol, after having fired a shot. He had noticed the motion too late, milliseconds after pulling the trigger. The Omega laughed as six more bursts of plasma were absorbed. John ducked away from the moving feet that were easily twice his size.

He saw Samus knock away Anton's rocket launcher.

"Don't bother." He heard her say, "That shielding can't absorb the rocket, but it'll just deflect it. Save your ammo."

John watched as Samus changed her cannon from its normal state to the Plasma beam. Heat raced from the cannon as white-hot energy gathered at the tip of her arm cannon. John skirted the footfall of the giant pirate once again and raced away from the behemoth.

He turned around to see it lower the left arm. The Pirate raised its right arm to hit a Spartan that was close to it. The Spartan started to move, but the radioactive Phazon cornered them. John watched as the fist came down with lightning speed. The shields on the Spartan flickered to life as they were knocked to the side, clearing the patch of blue substance. John frowned, trying to figure out why the Spartan, Anton, had been moved before the fist could have collided with him. Then he noticed a black figure in the Phazon. It was crackling around the armored person, hissing wildly. The figure stood up and a bolt of plasma hit the Omega Pirate's leg.

John then realized it was Samus. She had pushed Anton out of the way, taking the hit. Then he lifted the pistol and fired at the leg that Samus had targeted, three other pistol blasts scored the blue boulder. There was the whine of a rocket, Anton had gotten up and fired at the same area. The boulder blew apart, Phazon chunks littering the ground.

It took them half a minute to get rid of the rest of the shielding on the Omega, to make it vulnerable. The Omega collapsed on the ground; it waved one of its arms, and said something in Pirate. Samus tried to hit it with her plasma cannon, but it activated its camouflage. The pirate's skeletal, or perhaps its circulatory, system appeared to be made of Phazon. There was a flash of white light as the Omega disappeared. Ten troopers landed on the ground.

"Pests." Samus muttered. She took in the coloring of the nearest Beam Trooper. Red. Plasma. She charged a shot and fired it at the pirate. It took a second blast of plasma to down the enemy. She moved onto the next one. Purple. Wave.

John fired his emergency pistol at a nearby Pirate, some of its armor glowed blue. The pistol blast seemed to do nothing to it. He switched to his assault rifle, again, nothing. He tried to figure out why. He merely side-stepped the projectile that the Trooper had fired at him. He saw that Linda had switched to her Sniper rifle. He heard it crack four times, but only one Trooper fell. John switched the mode on his assault rifle, but the explosions did nothing to it. What was with these Pirates? What sort of armor did they have?

Then John saw something. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed Kelly rush towards one of the Troopers. She had just discovered how useless her weapon was against the Pirate she was fighting, a purple one. So she hit it a few times. One blow sent the Pirate flying towards a patch of Phazon. When it landed in the material, it roared in pain as the Phazon consumed it. John put his assault rifle away and ran at the Blue Pirate. He punched it, grabbed the arm that wielded a small scythe, and tossed it into some other Phazon.

John looked around and noticed that the other Troopers were down as well.

"He's vulnerable," Samus said calmly over TEAMCOM. She raised her cannon, a sphere of orange energy gathered around the muzzle. She aimed ten meters above a patch of Phazon. The energy condensed and a super missile flew towards the area. It seemed to hit an invisible barrier and exploded.

John lifted his pistol and fired it as fast as he could at the target site. Anton managed to hit it with one rocket. The others fired off at the area as well.

"Stop." She said and looked around. "If we're lucky..." There was a deep laughter that echoed throughout the room. "Damn." Samus remarked and turned around. The Omega Pirate had reformed in normal vision.

While standing in the patch of Phazon it activated its artillery cannons. Phazon jumped onto the Omega's back. Black bombs, coated in Phazon, were launched from its back. There were six shots.

John noticed the shell that came towards him. He backed away as fast as he could from the area where it would land. The projectile landed, the coating of Phazon exploded and splattered his entire front. Pain lanced through his entire nervous system, barely effecting his shielding. Then the bomb went off as a high-yield explosive. It consumed his entire shielding and he felt the sunburn forming and saw the flare of white through his eyelids.

The Chief staggered backwards as his shields started to reform, burning the Phazon off his suit. He took a second to recover. He drew a breath, which sent flaming tendrils out from his lungs. John ignored the pain of movement and looked at his teammates. They were all recovering from the blast, and Samus was nowhere to be seen. The enemy wasted no time while they were recovering. He walked towards Fred, who had gotten the worst of the attack by far. It lifted a hand to smite the Spartan.

All the other Spartans moved towards the Omega, raising their weapons to distract it. A Super Missile flew towards the Omega, hitting its right shoulder. The Omega whirled on Samus, who was very close to him. He roared and walked towards her.

"Good." Samus muttered, "C'mere you stupid piece of filth." She readied another Super Missile while backing very swiftly from the Omega. Samus noted that she had stepped into a large cluster of Phazon. The particles of Phazon energy that were sent flying by the material's crackling flew towards her charged beam. In seconds it had turned the same neon blue as the radioactive substance.

Samus grinned at the unexpected events and turned her cannon towards the Pirate. A cluster of blue energy flew at its right shoulder, instantly shattering it. She charged her power beam again, but it did not glow blue again. "Darn." She muttered in disappointment and turned her attention to the left shoulder.

The Omega Pirate hissed at Samus and hit the ground, something similar to a wave quake came at her, except it was made of Phazon energy and was quite a lot faster. She was sent backwards by the blow.


	35. Chapter 18 Of Omegas 2

The group fought the Omega for nigh twenty minutes. After mopping up more of the Omega's small Trooper aids, Samus turned her X-ray visor on again and fired at the Omega. John watched the Super Missile fly above his head, to a spot close to him. He fired the pistol at it. Plasma fire and a rocket converged on the spot.

There was a roar as the Omega Pirate was forced from its hiding. The flames in its eyes began to die down.

"Chief, move!" Samus shouted instantly.

John backed away as the Omega started to tip over. However, his legs barely responded. He had been hit with four more of the shells, and accidentally waded into Phazon. Kelly, who had been able to dodge the Omega's attacks for the most part, rushed to John. She was ten meters away, but crossed the distance in a few strides. She was about to shove the Chief out of the way when the Omega collapsed on top of them both.

«C'Jinlor!» Samus exclaimed and rushed over to the Omega's corpse. The three other Spartans followed her motions. The Omega's body began to boil liquid Phazon.

"Stay back!" Samus ordered. The Phazon at that level was dangerous. Only her suit could take it. The Hunter edged towards the body. She remembered being crushed by its tons of weight many years earlier. The only reason she had survived was because her Chozo made suit had been modular enough to absorb the Phazon and be corrupted by it. That had given her the same suit she wore now. However, John and Kelly did not have the luxury of a Chozo Power Suit.

Samus moved one foot into the pool of Phazon that was quickly congealing. She charged her Power Beam, turning her Power beam into a Phazon Beam. Silver whirled around Samus as the energy powering her suit was sent into a frenzy. She fired her cannon onto a nearby wall as many times as she could. Perhaps this could allow her to get Kelly and the Master Chief out of the pool, which was quickly receding. The Phazon evaporated after thirty long seconds.

Samus rushed over to the two Spartans lying on the ground. She watched them, unable to make out movement for their breathing. Samus heard Anton say "No...John...Kelly," and then something else. Samus crouched down and placed a hand on the Chief's shoulder and then she looked at Kelly.

After several painful moments they began to stir. Samus watched them move, on edge. The Phazon could have corrupted their minds. Her right hand tightened in the cannon, waiting for the signal from her brain to open fire on them.

It was Kelly who spoke first, "What. The. Hell. Happened." She wasn't expecting an answer from any one; in fact, she was painfully unaware that there was anyone around her. Fire burned through all her muscles. Kelly was grateful for the pain, however. It meant that she was alive. But was John? She looked towards the Chief and saw that he was sitting as well.

John looked at her, having gone through the same line of thinking that she had. He had barely heard what she had said. He shook his head to tell her that he didn't know. Then the Chief looked around, first spotting the other Spartans, who were watching him and Kelly very carefully, obviously concerned. Then he twisted to the other side and saw Samus. Her visor was not as opaque as a Spartan's, so he saw the worried look in her eyes and the furrowed eyebrows. Then a smile of relief broke onto her face and she sat back, chuckling.

Samus stood after a moment. She had just noticed their suit coloration. It was black now instead of green. A wonderful matte black, just as inky as her own suit. She offered a hand to the Chief since Kelly was already getting to her feet. Samus helped John up and then looked at Kelly, fully intending to answer her question.

She fixed a scanner on Kelly, it confirmed her theory. "Your suits have been corrupted by the vast amounts of Phazon that was in the Omega Pirate. I don't know the full effects of the Phazon corruption, however, so be careful about taking hits. When the Chozo modified your suits they must have given them the same modular nature as mine. Phazon's corrosive though, so I'm going to need you two examined thoroughly once we get back to the Migration."

"Correct." Adam said, "Cortana is giving your suit as thorough a diagnostic as she can right now, and it's taking all of her processing power." And then he added, "Fortunately, you both are very lucky."

"So how are we getting out of here?" John asked the AI.

"Good question. Samus, use your thermal visor."

Samus did as she had been told and noticed the hot spot that appeared on an otherwise plain wall. She then fixed her scanner on the point. "Bendiezium, damaged by the fight." She said. "Scanners say it's got a transporter behind it. Would explain how the Pirates and Covenant set that guy up without dying down here."

"Correct. Flying Pirates could have made it up and down without mishap, but they aren't very bright. Other Pirates and even Covenant would have had to set the Omega's pod in here, they would need a way up." Adam said, "And no, I didn't tell you to jump down on a hunch, Lady."

"Thanks for reading my mind, Adam." Samus muttered and walked over to the bendiezium covering and changed to her morph ball form, and planted one of her Power Bombs. The flare of white light destroyed the cover on the transporter. It was a doorframe that was covered in green shielding.

Samus walked through it first. She appeared on the top of the ledge, where they had jumped down. She used her thermal visor to double check for alien activity. Then she whispered over TEAMCOM, "All clear."

One by one the rest of the Spartans appeared on the edge. They all looked around, raising their preferred weapons to clear the area. At that momentary pause Samus finally took the time to glance up at her shielding, down to only four tanks. She had to be careful.

"Alright," Samus said. "Shall we?"

John nodded with a certain stiffness. His injuries were great, he noticed as he looked over the team's stats on TEAMBIO. Fred was covered in second-degree burns and had a broken wrist. Linda had escaped with only burns. Anton had a broken arm, burns, and pulled muscles. He and Kelly were covered in the greatest burns and had dangerously low blood pressures along with some broken bones. Even Samus had taken some injuries, half her ribs were broken and her left shoulder was displaced, but she had gotten away without any burns.

They still managed to cleverly beat all of the forces they came across on their way down the complex, the conventional way. When they came across a hunter pair in some lower rooms, John was hit almost dead on by their fuel rod cannon. His shields sustained the blast and still remained a hairsbreadth. Then the charge came back to full in less then a second, almost instantly.

Minutes later they came to a small data room with a holographic projection of the ring world. John walked towards it. He knew that this was the map that they had worked so hard to get to.

"There." Cortana said, "That's the Silent Cartographer."

"How do we activate it?"

"I don't know." Cortana said.

"You've got a knack for this stuff, Chief." Samus told him, "Better then me at any rate. You want to give it a try?"

John walked forwards and activated the holographic display.

"Analyzing." Cortana said, delighted, "The Control Room's there." She highlighted a part of the map on everyone's HUD. "It appears to be some sort of shrine."

The entire group turned around and made their way back up. They all once made the mistake of entering a room they had just cleared, to find it full of invisible Pirates and Elites. The ensuing battle brought them all a spike in adrenaline. By the time they were reaching the exit of the underground area, Samus was on her last energy tank.

They got back into the LRV and John drove them back to the beach head. Samus fell to the ground once the magnetic railing was shut off. Her shielding was completely gone and her armor had taken a great deal of punishment on the way back. She walked at a toddler's speed to the recharge station. The energy beams whirred to life and recharged her energy tanks and undid some of the damage on her suit, however she was still almost ready to collapse. There was a brief fight while they waited to dust off.

In a minute the drop ship was waiting for them, collecting the LRV and the recharge station. The nine armored humans scrambled aboard the ship. Samus leaned back in her seat, unable to doze off due to the pain in her side. She could ignore it, and she had taken worse, but she would still need medical treatment.


	36. Chapter 19 Of Overheating

Uh...just so you guys are aware...for future reference...I started writing this probably a year and a half before Prime 3 was released. In this chapter and beyond I'll be trying to integrate information from Prime 3 with as little awkwardness as possible. But, yeah...it's going to be a little...weird...

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**1805 Hours, September 1, 2552 (Military Calendar)**

**600 kilometers from the **_**Migration**_** Flying near the Control Room, Blue Team Log**

John waited patiently as he examined the loading bay of the drop ship. They had been forced to stay on the Chozo frigate until Dr. Hasley had been able to completely cure their injuries, which were vast. Linda had been gotten out first because she had the least severe out of the group. She and Will and teamed up with Clint to go investigate an area on Halo that had been marked by a Pirate log that Samus had intercepted. Scans showed that it seemed to be a marsh or a swamp that was densely covered by trees. Thermal scans proved that the area was not hot, but the logs hinted that there would be a large amount of enemies there.

"Hey, Adam." Samus muttered into her comm. line. "Can you explain something for me?"

John looked over to her. To him it seemed that there was very little that she didn't know or couldn't find out with her scan visor. If she didn't want him or Kelly to know what she was saying, she would have turned off her speakers.

"Yes, Samus?" the AI responded.

"Why is it that there's Phazon?" She seemed to examine her left hand, "Not that I'm complaining about my suit, but last I knew, I had destroyed Phazee, and thus all Phazon. And why do the Pirates have so much of it?"

"That is a good question. I hypothesize that just like the Federation was able to breed Metroids even after you had supposedly wiped the entire genus out, the Pirates did have extra stores of Phazon."

"But Phazee was the source of all Phazon. Without it, Phazon shouldn't exist."

"I know. Perhaps there are more worlds like Phazee which allow Phazon, just not Phazee Phazon, to exist. The universe is a big place after all."

"I don't like the sound of that." Samus said. "But, so long as I don't get corrupted again, I'll be fine. Besides, it's good for a suit augmentation." Then John watched as she turned towards the two Spartans that were loaded into the bay with her, himself included.

"Curious, huh, Kelly? John?"

"What _is_ Phazon exactly? You said our suits were corrupted by it, but nothing else." Kelly responded.

Samus chuckled, "Sorry. I keep forgetting you guys aren't in the Federation. Hell, I'm having a hard time remembering you aren't Space Hunters."

"Space Hunters?" Kelly repeated.

"What I am. A mercenary with a contract to the Federation, basically." Samus explained and then answered her original question, "Phazon is a radioactive substance that seems to have a life-force of it's own, actually it does. It corrupts or it kills." Samus relaxed into her seat and closed her eyes, "Corruption isn't fun. If it corrupts you, it slowly takes over your mind, makes it harder to think the more corrupt you get. Eventually, it strips you of all conscious thought. When it kills you, it absorbs you and turns your corpse into itself. Pleasant business, really."

John couldn't help asking the question on his mind, Samus spoke as though she had first hand experience with the process. "Have you been corrupted?"

"Yes, and no. Not completely, and not anymore, so there's nothing to be concerned about." John watched as she settled back into her chair, apparently closing the matter for discussion.

After a few minutes Cortana announced, "We'll be nearing the entry shortly. It's a canyon far enough from the Control Room to avoid resistance for landing, but not far enough to take more then two hours."

"You hope." John heard Samus mumble, and he wondered if she was talking about the resistance, the time it would take, or both. He shook off her comment and looked down at his suit. He examined it carefully, as if this new scrutiny would bring a result that his fifteen other examinations hadn't before. Kelly brushed his arm. He looked up at her. That contact was not by accident.

She opened a one-way with him. "Don't worry about it, sir. Cortana, Adam, and Doctor Hasley all examined our suits carefully. And we sparred with Samus in them. They're perfectly fine."

John nodded at her; it was a slight motion only another Spartan would notice. Regardless, he looked at his suit and contemplated his new information about Phazon. That might have explained why in his fight with the Omega Pirate, the Phazon had destroyed his shields as much as they had. He didn't understand why that hadn't corrupted his suit, however, while the Phazon from the Omega Pirate had.

"Cortana?"

"To answer your probable question, Chief." Cortana replied instantly, "I'm not sure. According to what data I have from Samus's logs, however, I've deduced that Chozo power armor is highly modular and adaptable with the technology of other races. Which is why Samus correctly surmised that when the Chozo modified your suits, they had given it the same modular nature as her own power suit. From what I can tell, for the Chozo's armor or weapons to go through any sort of modulation it takes high concentrations of energy with shields down. If you can recall, your shields saved you from being crushed by the Omega's weight, but they were destroyed and your suit absorbed the Phazon energy. If there had only been either you or Kelly however and Samus had not intervened by using up some of the Phazon energy in blasts, I'm not sure how you would have fared."

John listened to her every word and had the answers to his questions. He wondered if Doctor Hasley had lied when she had said that Cortana was unable to read his mind, she sometimes knew what he was thinking, as he thought it.

She announced from his helmet speakers, "We'll be arriving in a moment. Please prepare to land everyone."

John's hand went to the back of his head. He felt the nape of his neck and his fingers brushed against the chip that was there. Samus and he were carrying Adam and Cortana. The computers had decided that since they were going to collect the archive of information on Halo that the Covenant were after, it would be best if they came along completely with the Spartans and Samus to go into the computer together so that they could quickly gather all the information that they needed.

He looked over at Samus and saw the crystal clear chip that the Chozo had made in the armor on her left arm. He had a similar chip as well, Cortana said that the Chozo's AI chips were much vaster then the ones made by the UNSC. She had also remarked about how her processing power was almost as good as the power in the _Migration_.

The Hell Jumper that was steering the drop ship level out and hovered in mid air. He hit a switch and the door on the bottom of the ship opened, allowing John to jump out first and hit the dirt. Or snow. He moved to the side but looked around as he saw the snow covering the ground up to his ankles. Kelly landed next and moved forward with her gun raised. She too noticed the snow and looked around in confusion. Samus jumped down and she voiced the question that the other two Spartans had.

"What? I didn't think a world that was made by a race like the Chozo would have snow on it." John noted a tone of irritation in her voice. He wondered if she didn't like the cold.

"The weather patterns here seem natural, not artificial." Cortana replied to Samus and then thought aloud, "I wonder if the ring's environment systems are malfunctioning or if the designers wanted the installation to have inclement weather."

"Well, whatever the case is, it makes us stand out a lot more." Samus replied. John knew that their black suits on white snow would be a great contrast, however they would not have blended in well with the snow, even with all of their old suits back.

John led the group forwards. Samus and Kelly fell into a staggered line behind them. He had his assault rifle raised into a ready position as they marched across the snow. Their trek was short lived as they came to a door. John walked near it, and his motion triggered it to open. He darted into the room with Samus and Kelly covering his back. He cleared the room inside the door. The other two followed him and the door closed as they slowly walked away from it.

The room was eerily met without an enemy spotted. John felt uncomfortable at having met no resistance, however, he continued onwards. The next several rooms and assorted hallways were also met without enemies. His motion tracker only detected the yellow dots of Samus and Kelly. They came upon an elevator. They loaded into the small area and John activated the lift. They glided smoothly down the shaft. As they began to decelerate, they lifted up their weapons and aimed them for the door as it came up from the floor.

The three moved through the corridors of the inside of the building, everything was eerily silent. It was over half an hour later that they came outside again. The motion sensor door opened and snow fell into the hallway at their feet. They heard the startled cries of several Covenant soldiers nearby, mostly Grunts. They rushed out into the snow. John gave a glance to the wall near the door they had just exited and saw that the snow had piled against it, and probably the door, thus the reason why the Covenant had not gone into the corridors.

They killed the nearby five Grunts and an Elite. John's motion tracker picked up many enemies. Samus told him that her radar picked up more on the other side of the large spire that they faced. He quickly ordered them to move far apart. In a wide triangle they slowly moved through the valley. John noticed that there were coniferous trees growing in the valley. He paid little attention to it, though he briefly wondered why they resembled white pines on Earth. He dodged a plasma shot from a Grunt and shot it down with his assault rifle.

It was several minutes later that they worked their way down the chasm to a tunnel that sloped downwards with plenty of rocky cover. His motion tracker told him that there were covenant soldiers down there.

He backed from the tunnel to Samus and Kelly. He helped them to destroy the enemies that they faced. When the area was reasonably clear he brought their attention to the tunnel.

"What do you think? Should we head down?" He asked them.

"I would not suggest it," Adam responded from Samus's suit. "According to what little information I have, our target area is in the opposite direction of that tunnel."

John did not want to turn his back on the tunnel. He knew that there were enemy soldiers lying in wait behind those rocks, more then his tracker picked up. However, he also knew it would be a waste of time and ammunition to go down there and pick the area clean. It was also dangerous. He frowned and nodded his head to Adam's logic.

Kelly pushed him out of the way of a plasma shot. He looked and saw that the chasm continued on the other side of the spire. Covenant soldiers that had been over there had spotted the three black armored warriors. He told them to go into the same formation and they crawled along the other side, clearing it of Covenant as well. He stopped them behind a boulder, hoping that the Wraith Tank he had just spotted hadn't noticed them. He killed a Grunt and gave one last glance at the Wraith. It hovered over the ice ominously, daring them to come into its range. He backed away from it and gave a glance over to Kelly. She had just blasted an Elite to hell with a shotgun.

"C'jinlor!" He heard Samus exclaim. He noticed that the lower right corner of his tracker had just exploded in red dots. He whipped around with Kelly and watched Space Pirates pour out of a door hidden in the side of the spire. He was vexed at himself for not having noticed it beforehand, as his attention had been fixed on the Wraith.

He ran over to Kelly and helped the other Spartan to cover Samus's flanks. Many minutes later, he watched as a flying pirate crashed to the ground he had been standing on seconds before. He raised his gun and turned over to where Samus was.

Samus had been destroying many of the elemental pirates, making sure that John and Kelly did not have to deal with their specialized armor systems. As an Ice Trooper fell before her, Samus saw a plasma blade come down upon her. She had no room to dodge, and a half second to think of something.

She knew that the Elite's sword would eat away at her shielding, and allowing the energy blade to collide with her helm, as it's trajectory was heading, would end badly, she did the best thing she could think of. She blasted at it, the shielding flared but it continued falling towards her. Samus raised up her left arm, making sure that the chip with Adam in it wasn't struck, to block the blade while continuing to use her arm cannon to hit the Elite. Her shields flared around her forearm and seemed to glue the plasma sword to her. Both she and the Elite were taken aback by this. Samus watched as her shields drained to nothing and the plasma sword vanished until the Elite was holding the metal that generated the energy blade. Suddenly, Samus's suit overheated. The internal temperature raised tens of degrees Celsius. She staggered backwards, away from the Elite as it tried to start the plasma sword again. Failing in this, it brought up its plasma rifle as it was shot down by John and Kelly.

John covered Kelly and Samus as the Spartan ran over to the Chozo warrior. His assault rifle was raised in defense as he continuously cleared the area with the gun's muzzle.

Samus had fallen onto her back in the snow. John was aware that the area around Samus was getting unusually warm. The snow around her armor suit was turning into a puddle of lukewarm water.

"According to data from Adam," Cortana mused aloud, "her power suit's bio-sensors are malfunctioning and making the internal temperatures rise well above their set limits. If this keeps up much longer, she'll die from heat exposure."

John looked down at Samus. "How do we deactivate her suit?" He asked. He knew that she'd be cold, but she could live.

"Bad idea." Samus said through her speakers. Her voice was strained and the sound was ridden by static. The Hunter got up and struggled to her feet.

"I don't think I need to warn you," Cortana began, "that doing anything with your suit in its current state would be a bad idea."

Samus didn't respond. She collapsed her gun, and used the tips of her fingers to pull Adam's chip out of her armor's outer skin. She handed it to Kelly. The Spartan took the chip and placed it in her pouch, near her grenades.

"Maybe you should let the heat escape by taking your helmet off. Your shields are gone, from what Adam sent me, so it won't make a difference."

"Bad idea," Samus said again.

"Why?" John inquired while he looked around, no enemies came near them.

"The cold air." She replied.

"Just because it's cold," Kelly began irritably. Samus raised her left hand to stop the Spartan. She walked towards the doors that the enemies had come out of earlier. John looked at Kelly and then followed the Hunter.

He didn't understand her. She seemed to be as tough, if not tougher, then the Spartans, but she wouldn't tolerate the cold. It seemed childish and civilian to him. As young children, all of his comrades, alive and dead, had been put through rigorous training, even during blizzards. If she was so tough, what was her problem with the cold?


	37. Chapter 19 Of Overheating 2

They walked into the spire and found that it was not made of rock, although the star pattern on the outside had already implied that. It was similar to the inner corridors of the mountains. He wondered if all of this had been designed with the world, or if it had come later.

Dead Covenant bodies were scattered on the floor. Samus sat down against a wall and began to do a diagnostic on her suit. Or at least, the Master Chief assumed that she was doing that. She was messing around with some buttons under the panel on her left forearm and holographic displays were cluttering her visor. She reached up after a moment and pressed a button by the base of her helmet. It vanished and hot air rushed out of the inside of her suit and rose to the top of the room.

He heard motion nearby and turned. There was a cluster of confused Grunts and Jackals. John and Kelly instinctively got in front of Samus and began to fire at the soldiers. The skirmish was brief, but John found that he had to reload his weapon to finish off the last of the twenty Covenant while Kelly fired upon the ones on the right side of the group.

He looked up and saw that a Grunt had been plastered by a plasma grenade, right over its eye. The Grunt ran around the room, screaming at its fellows to remove the device. The others ran to avoid it. A jackal with its shield moved to roll from the Grunt found that it had a stick grenade on its torso. In the resulting explosions, all of the covenant were killed. John looked around for the source of the grenades. His first thought was Kelly, but she was looking around as well. They both looked back at Samus. The body of an Elite was near her, and two plasma grenades rested on the ground by it. Elites usually had four grenades. John briefly wondered what had happened to the one until he realized that Samus had armed and thrown the plasma grenades to finish off the Covenant.

Her face seemed drawn in concentration. John sensed that the heat from her suit was beginning to fade.

"Samus?" He asked.

She did not look up at him. Instead, she clicked the button that had made her helmet disappear and this time it reappeared. Holographic displays blinked across the visor, obscuring her face. The red conduits in the armor on her left arm began to glow blue. Her forearm sparked and the temperature of her suit in the effected area rose rapidly. A long sword jutted out of her left elbow. It was fairly parallel with her arm and it extended beyond her fingertips.

John saw a narrow holographic display band appear on her visor. He read it backwards. It said, "You Acquired the Plasma Sword." Beyond that was a small amount of text that he assumed told her about the new weapon. She flexed her hand and the sword disappeared.

Samus stood up and stretched her left arm, curling and uncurling her fingers. She walked over to Kelly.

"Could you return Adam to me?" She said. Kelly reached into her pouch and wordlessly handed over the AI chip. Samus replaced it and looked the Spartans over. She muttered, "You really do work in teams."

"What do you mean by that?" Kelly asked.

"Space Hunters, and all Bounty Hunters, do not work together much, and when they do, they don't work together well. It's all a game of 'I owe you' or 'You owe me'. Anyone else that I've ever worked with would have left me alone and trudged ahead, expecting me to catch up or die." Samus said as concisely as she could.

John stared at Samus, scrutinizing her. "It's different in the military." He said after a while. "You work together with your allies and help them."

"I know that much." Samus responded. "It's about the only place that works like that."

John found that there was nothing more that needed to be said and left the room. Kelly fell into line behind him as did Samus. The three left the room and found themselves confronted by the Wraith. He and Kelly rushed past the Covenant tank, avoiding its bombshell blast. Samus neatly flipped over its top, briefly entering her morph ball mode and dropped several bombs into the drivers seat. She landed and skidded along the icy surface. There was the roar of a Covenant Elite as the controls of the Wraith exploded and sent the alien skyrocketing out of the pilot's seat.

A pair of Shield Pirate Troopers greeted them near the edge of the ice patch. Samus rolled to the side to dodge their energy blasts as John and Kelly rain fire down on the Pirates. The bullets bounced harmlessly off of the shields. After several seconds of the staccato gunfire, Master Chief was unsure if they were actually doing anything. However, he and Kelly had taken the alien's attentions off of the shieldless Samus, so he supposed that was better.

Samus snuck up behind one of the pirates and shot her left arm out at it. Electromagnetic waves blasted out of the armor and shot at the pirate. The shield flared as the high voltage of the beam drained the energy tanks of the portable shielding. She pulled her arm back sharply. The shields sparked as they died and static electricity came to life around Samus's Phazon Suit, there was the faint boom of thunder as her shields came to life and displaced the air that had been around her suit.

John and Kelly leapt at the opportunity and took down the unprotected pirate. The other Pirate fixed its attention on Samus. The Space Hunter slid on the ice, dodging an attack. She lashed out with her grapple beam once again and tore the shields of the other Pirate. The Spartans killed the Pirate. Samus stood up from where she had crouched down on the ice and regarded her left arm. She looked at John and Kelly and walked along the snow.

John and Kelly caught up with the Hunter. Questions begged to be asked within him. He ignored all but the most predominant. When had she had the ability to destroy shielding and replenish her own? He thought of asking her, but decided not to. She seemed to be busily reviewing some data in her logs as they walked and was muttering something irritably in a strange language. He also knew that more then half of the time Samus did not answer any questions that were put to her, and with her current activity the odds were lowered to less then a quarter of her answering his question in any form.

He glanced over at Kelly and saw that she was staring at Samus's back. Years of experience with the Spartan told him that she was probably rather annoyed with Samus. He was too, but Samus was a strong ally, so he kept his complaints to himself.

They came around a corner and found that it was alive with alien activity. They seemed to be awaiting the group of three. Although heavily outnumbered, the aliens, consisting mostly of Elites and Shielded Pirates, were annihilated after a few minutes of gun fighting. Samus had torn the shields away from most of the aliens, giving John and Kelly a great opportunity to take the aliens down.

Samus's shielding was almost at full capacity. She was still angered by the fact that the Chozo had made that upgrade to her suit, allowing it to recharge its shields while after pulling the shields of the enemy away with the grapple beam, without alerting her. She hadn't bothered removing the shields of the Covenant Elites since they were weak and easily destroyed, and the shielding of the Omega or Pirate Elites was far too large for the grapple beam.

They came around a bend and found themselves walking along a narrow ledge of five meters in width that wound gently in a canyon below. They made their way through the canyon, destroying the alien forces that they came across. They went through a narrow opening in the mountainsides and had to climb a steep and slippery trail to come upon a large flat field, encased on all sides by mountains. There they encountered several hundred alien troops. In twenty minutes the field was clear. They were down on their ammunition and Samus's shielding was down by some, though not as much as it would have been, due to the discovery of her modified grapple beam.

They found some doors into the mountainside and then they wound their way through several corridors with breaks for large rooms filled with alien activity. They crossed a large bridge after going up an elevator. Next to the bridge that they were on was another bridge. After killing the aliens on the bridges, they momentarily considered jumping over the gap, decided that it was too large, and crossed the bridge, entering the mountains again. They snaked through the mountains and then found themselves one the second bridge. They had picked off the enemies on it before, but they crossed it with trepidation. There were only a few more enemies.

After they crossed the bridge and had gone inside the doors that had opened for them John halted their progress. Kelly and he leaned backwards against the wall, grateful for a moment's respite. Samus stood there and looked at them for a long moment before leaning against the wall opposite them. She pressed a few controls on her arm cannon and checked it over before examining her left forearm.

"So what happened out there?" Kelly ventured when Samus had stopped examining her armor.

Samus shrugged her shoulders. "It took a while for my power suit to modulate the Covenant plasma sword." She said with very little uncertainty. John wondered if she was a certain as she sounded.

"I figured that. But afterwards. Why didn't you let your armor cool off where it was clear instead of going into a place where the number of enemies was unknown?"

Kelly's question seemed to have struck a nerve. Samus got off the wall and looked at John. "I think we've rested enough." She said flatly with irritation crawling into her tone.

John regarded her for a moment, decided that he didn't want to risk angering a Space Hunter with the reputation of destroying planets on her own, and agreed. They continued through the mountains and came across a slim footbridge. There was an Elite starting to climb into a Banshee nearby. The three quickly took the Covenant down. In the next minute they killed all the other aliens on the footbridge.

"That pyramid to your right. You need to go there. The Control Room is just at the top." Cortana instructed them. John looked down at the fall to the ground and sighed. Dropping down and then climbing up would be much easier, but the fall was too great.

"I think," Samus said, realizing the same thing as the Master Chief. "I think it might be possible for you and Kelly to get down to the ground via that Banshee. And then I can just jump down."

John nodded. That plan would work. He got into the cockpit and Kelly clambered unto the top of the Covenant vehicle. It's anti-gravity units on the short stubby wings groaned under the extra weight, but he managed to pilot it safely to the first tier of the pyramid. While in the air he heard a large thud on the ground. Kelly jumped off of the Banshee.

"I'll start climbing up and taking out the enemies, sir. Just bring Samus to the top." She paused, "If that's a good idea, sir."

"It is." He said and turned the Banshee around. He saw that Samus as having trouble fending off a Wraith and several Hunter pairs. He flicked the secondary weapon of the Banshee and the fuel rod blast, the same type of blast of the Hunters' weapons, found its home in the cockpit of the Wraith Tank. He helped Samus pick off the Hunters by distracting them with strafes of plasma fire while the Chozo warrior delivered the killing blows. He flew the Banshee in low and Samus jumped onto the top of the craft. John flew it upwards and brought it to the top of the pyramid.

At the top, Samus leapt off and helped Kelly, who was facing down some Pirate Troopers. The Master Chief stayed in the Banshee and rained plasma down on the troopers. He served as a distraction and helped the other two on the ground to easily take the Pirates out. He checked the secondary weapons on the Banshee as he flew in closer to the ground, aiming for a weakened Pirate soldier. He jumped out of the Banshee as it crashed into the Pirate solider and simultaneously fired the Fuel Rod. The Master Chief registered some satisfaction at the knowledge that the Pirate Trooper could not have survived that.

There was a pair of large cargo doors. They checked the switch to open it, taking hiding positions and killing the enemy aliens lying in wait for them, a combination of Pirates and Covenant, from where they were. They then ran in and along the large cargo pathway and opened another door. They were faced with a long catwalk to a large control panel. Just beyond that was a large holographic representation of the ring and the moon that it was orbiting. John found the slots to insert the chips with the AIs and he and Samus put the entire chip containing Adam and Cortana into the control panel.


	38. Chapter 20 Of Infection

**1755 Hours, September 1, 2552 (Military Calendar)**

**1234 kilometers from the **_**Migration**_** Green Team Log**

Linda sat quietly in the drop ship and watched as Will and Clint joked around. She smiled to herself as she listened to the two and settled back into her seat. As much as she could with her bulky armor systems and the seats that had been crafted for different suit structures.

"Hey, Linda," Will called over the Team Comm., Linda had requested that they not joke in ways that the marines could hear them. "You asleep?" His tone was mischievous.

"You know that's what she does a lot."

"No, she only sleeps when she's sniping. It's why she takes so long to hit the target. She's sleeping. I don't want her to miss out on her mid-battle nap by taking one right now."

"Right." Clint said sarcastically. Linda smiled and chuckled at Will. Her fingers, which had been tightly gripped around the sniper rifle, loosened as the anxiety within her eased. There was nothing to be worried about, the area was fairly clean of Covenant and Pirate activity. It wouldn't take the three Spartans long to clean the area and see what "weapon" was there that the Covenant had been so interested in, that they had enlisted the help of the Pirates to excavate it. She thought for a moment that one of her old teammates had rubbed off on her.

Linda told the two Spartans this over the Team Comm.

"Well," Will said carefully, "It could be a cleverly designed trap by the Covenant. That's always a thought that must be considered."

"It's not the Covenant that are bothering me." Linda said.

"Then maybe the Pirates? They certainly seemed ready to trap you and Samus a great deal of times." Clint offered.

"Not them." She paused as she realized painfully that she had no idea what was bothering her. "Just something else."

"Then a trap by the people who designed this place." Will announced. "We'll just have to keep an eye out. Maybe they didn't want anyone to find their secret weapon. Besides, we can't be in trouble if you've got our backs, Green Lead."

Linda sighed, realizing that continuing this conversation was futile. She simply sat back and checked her sniper rifle over. It was a nervous habit of hers, Will recognized this and didn't say anything to Clint to joke around.

It was very silent for the rest of the ride in the drop ship until the Marine piloting them announced, "Alright. We're at the LZ." The noise of his speech was painfully loud and Linda wanted to rebuke him for saying anything at all. She stowed the urge and waited for Will and Clint to get off of the ship before leaving herself.

They found themselves in knee deep in swamp water. Linda grimaced and ushered the two Spartans forward. Clint took point. Every time they began to turn a corner, Linda crouched by the bend and whipped the rifle around to check it out. Despite Linda's feeling, their extra precautions were superfluous.

Eventually they came to an A-shaped structure in the swamp. They entered the building and found that it too was devoid of alien activity. All three of the Spartans were feeling anxious. They had never been on a mission where there was nothing to oppose them for so long. Linda's finger was held directly over the trigger of her rifle and even while they walked down the ramp at the entrance, she did not lower the weapon once. Will and Clint behaved similarly.

Will pointed to a holographic display on a rise in the floor. Linda waved Will and Clint to walk around the room as she examined the display. They came back, showing in the form of narrow gestures that there was nothing to see in the room. Linda waved them onto the rise in the floor and pressed the control panel. The rise in the floor turned out to be a lift that lowered them into the building.

There was nothing in the room the lift stopped at either. Nor was there anything for the next several rooms. After ten minutes of cautious travel through the lower parts of the building they came across a Covenant Elite lying the floor in a pool of its neon blue blood. As they looked around there were other Elite and Pirate corpses on the floor. All three of them kept up a unanimously agreed upon silence and spoke in gestures their utter confusion at the sight.

After a moment they continued onwards and after a nerve-rending travel that took them twenty minutes due to a very cautious march they came to a downwards ramp that led to a locked door. The sight relived the three marginally.

"What do you think?" Clint whispered over the Comm. line. He gestured at the door.

Linda stared at it. As much as she appreciated the obstacle, her sense of foreboding had increased. It might trigger a trap to open it. She stared at the lock on the door and realized that it was made by the Covenant. She wondered why the Covenant had locked up this room and the sight of the alien corpses came back to her with a crawling feeling. She looked at Will. He shrugged, having come to the same conclusion as she had. Clint responded similarly as Will did when she looked at him. With a deep breath Linda gestured for Clint to open the door.

* * *

Cortana's and Adam's holographic images appeared above the control panel in front of Samus, John and Kelly. The AIs were several times the size of the soldiers in front of them.

"Interesting." Cortana said as she looked off into the distance.

"There's such a plethora of information." Adam had the same glassy stare.

At the same instant in time both AIs snapped out of their reverie. Cortana looked down at the Master Chief, algorithms scrolling around her body rapidly in a red color. Adam looked at Samus severely.

"Did you find anything out about the weapon?" John asked.

"Weapon?" Cortana's voice was disdainful at the question.

"Yes. The weapon that the Covenant and Pirate's are after. Did you find anything out about it at all?"

"Halo is not a cudgel." Cortana snapped at him.

John stared at the female AI and looked over at Samus. She looked over at Adam. "What is this place, Adam?"

"There is no time for that, Lady. I'm afraid that you need to go find Green Team."

"Why?"

"Just do it." Cortana snapped. "There's no time for explanations."

"You need to find them quickly. Is that clear?" Adam asked sharply as he looked down at Samus.

Samus looked at Adam for a moment and huffed impatiently. She whirled around on her heels. John quickly followed her and Kelly caught up with the Chozo warrior. She remotely called for the drop ship that was waiting for them.

"What's going on?" Kelly asked Samus as they ran.

"I don't know. But it's serious."

"How are you so sure?" John inquired. He had been getting that feeling as well. It was strange for two AIs to act so impatiently about anything.

"Adam. Whenever he tells me to do something, he asks me if I have any objections. He didn't this time. That means that Green Team is in a lot of trouble." She called back to them. "Enough talking, more running!"

She sped upwards and ran out of the large cargo doors. Waiting for them at the top of the pyramid was her gunner ship. She had told it to come near their original LZ to pick them up after their mission was complete. Her initial thought for this was to find the weapon, but this helped them with finding Green Team. She jumped to the top of the ship and started heating the engines as the other two Spartans jumped in. She closed the top door and didn't wait for them to be seated or strapped down before hitting the acceleration.

* * *

Linda walked into the room with her rifle raised, Will and Clint to her either side. They cleared the room. There were three locked doors on the three walls that greeted them. There were two raised platforms in the room. Her motion tracker was silent. Linda motioned to Clint and Will. They crept up one of the platforms and checked it with their rifles. There was nothing hidden in the room.

Linda turned around to head out of the room so that they could check other parts of the complex and saw to her surprise that the door had locked behind them. She took a breath and broke the silence.

"I guess we sprung the trap." Will and Clint turned to look at her when she spoke and they too saw the locked door.

"Guess we'll have to find a way out." Will said. He started to move down the ramp when they heard a noise in the ceiling above them. It sounded like water rushing through pipes.

Linda wondered if the trap was to drown them. Fill up the room with water and make it so that they couldn't escape. She knew that they could survive for upwards of an hour with the oxygen reserves in their suits and given their density, they might be able to break a door down and run out before suffocating. She was about to say this to the other two when she heard a pounding sound on a small grate in the ceiling on the far end of the room. She thought that the flood was about to begin when the grate fell to the floor. She watched in surprise as small creatures poured out of the grate and onto the room.

"Problem, guys." Linda said and brought their attention to the alien horde that was flowing to them.

* * *

Samus brought her gunner ship to a hovering position a few feet above the swamp they had traced Green Team's LZ to. She allowed the Spartans to clamber out before jumping out of the ship herself. She punched in a few commands to her drop ship, ordering it to circle the area they were going to, so that they could dust off without much waiting after finding Green Team. They were knee deep in swamp water. Samus groaned and thought of the numerous bogs she had been to throughout her career and reviled at the thought of having to go through another one.

She looked back at the Spartans. They were standing still, acclimatizing themselves with their environment. Samus waited patiently for them her eyes continuously flickering green.

When John had been standing there for as long as he thought necessary to get used to the swamp they were in, so he could be alerted to any potential danger in the area by sound alone, he waved Kelly forwards. He strode alongside Samus with Kelly on the Bounty Hunter's other side. They went along nearly the same exact path that Green Team had trekked through. However, they were met by a large group of aliens, Covenant and Pirate alike. It took them longer to get through the swamp then Green Team because of the heavy resistance.

They came to the A-shaped building and walked down the ramp into it. They took the lift downwards after checking the room. At the bottom there were several aliens, Jackals and Grunts. At the sound of the lift they hadn't moved, perhaps because they thought that it was their allies on the lift. For this assumption they were rewarded with one of Kelly's grenades.

Then they continued through the depths of the complex. Through the entire lower floors they came across alien resistance. It only seemed to get heavier the more they walked along. The group walked down a hallway that was painted neon blue with alien gore. They looked into a side room that was blocked off by large cargo units. Inside the room was a pair of dead Grunts.

"I didn't know the little guys had so much blood in them." Samus commented, taking a look at the blood splattered over nearly every inch of the corridor and the room the bodies were in.

John felt something form in the pit of his stomach. The dead Grunts, and other alien corpses they had come across, could have come from Green Team. It was reasonable that they could have killed and made many corpses for them to trail along. But this was far too violent for his Spartans. They continued to follow the trail of alien bodies that they came across, assuming that it was a breadcrumb trail that would lead to Green Team.

They came to the ramp that led down to a locked door in the middle of a room. They walked down the ramp. John noticed with extreme discomfort that there was congealed red blood pooled at the bottom of the door. It was locked with one of the Chozo's code breakers placed on it. He wondered if the Spartans had locked themselves inside the room to hide from alien activity, and which one of them was injured.

Samus keyed the panel on the door. John thought he heard something as the door slid open and spun around, with his rifle raised. There was nothing there. He told himself to relax his nerves, but something kept bothering him. Samus looked up at him.

"Yeah, I'm getting an eerie feeling too. I'm starting to get the feeling that this "easy mission" is going to start getting rough soon." She gestured to the open door. "Want to go in?"


	39. Chapter 20 Of Infection 2

John nodded and stepped over the pool of drying blood into the bare room. He noticed that the floor was littered with hundreds of pieces of ammunition. He suddenly realized that Green Team must have encountered some sort of heavy force of aliens in this room and locked it to keep it sealed. He turned around to tell the others to get out and saw the door lock closed behind Samus and Kelly as they entered. The other two turned around and grimaced at the locked door.

"So," Samus said, almost amicably, "what do you think is in here? Pirates, Covenant, or most probably, the aliens that made this ring, which are probably unhappy with how people are just invading it."

John dryly swallowed. "I think that last one."

"Probably violent." Kelly said as she shifted on her feet.

Samus looked at the two Spartans. "Yeah. Strong too, I'll wager." She exhaled sharply. "Well, whatever it is, if you two give me some cover to scan the bloody thing, I'll tell you what I find out about it," and then she added, "or them."

"Alright." John responded and steadied himself. Somehow, Samus's speech had the strange effect of calming him down. He looked at Kelly, who was still shifting nervously. "Keep a clear head." He told her. The Spartan nodded and checked the ammunition in her weapons. He knew that she'd be a lot calmer once this overwhelming feeling of anticipation was gone and they were in the midst of battle. He heard a banging sound on one of the four locked doors in the room. He trained his rifle on the door, Kelly followed suit. Samus activated her scanner and backed away from the door to get some distance.

A tall figure walked into the room. John eased his finger off of the trigger of his rifle as he recognized the MJOLINIR armor of one of Green Team. He called out. "Green Three, Where are Green One and Two?" He knew by the marking on the outside of the armor that it was Clint. His nerves rose as the Spartan continued to lumber towards them, almost as though he were injured.

"Green Three?" He called out again. Why wasn't Clint responding? He also noticed that there was almost no damage to his suit. "Spartan-150, what happened to Spartans –043 and –058." Clint continued to disregard his superior. John felt irritation boil within him. "Where are Linda and Will, Clint?" He said roughly, annoyed at the insubordination he had never experienced before.

A missile flew past him and hit Clint in the chest. He turned on Samus. The Chozo warrior walked forwards. He could see something somber in her eyes.

"What was that for?" Kelly snapped. She too was confused by Clint's direct lack of response to the Master Chief's questions, but that hadn't required Samus to send the Spartan flying back with a missile.

"That's not your friend, Chief, not any more," she said as she looked towards the door that Clint had come out from. Small green blobs were flooding into the room. They looked like misshapen blobs and jumped around on a plethora of tentacles.

John saw her scan the little creatures and heard her snarl. "Keep those «kiz'jilar» away from you!" She shouted angrily.

"What are they?" John asked as Samus pushed him side. He saw Samus barely avoid the fire that had come from Clint.

Samus didn't respond and merely stared firing on the small aliens. John looked at Clint, who was now aiming a gun at him. His eyes widened as he ran to the side to avoid the fire.

"Samus," John called out to the Chozo warrior. "What. Is. Going. On?" His words were punctuated by burst of fire from the battle rifle. Kelly was running around, helping Samus with the smaller aliens.

"Parasites!" Samus shouted to him as she ran around, firing as the smaller creatures followed her. John noted that they were not that smart, falling easily into Samus's trap. He ducked to dodge more fire from Clint. "They infect hosts to spread their numbers. They got to him! It's irreversible!"

Samus said as she raised her arm cannon to point at Clint. Another missile launched at him. This time the infected Spartan dodged and started firing at Samus. Some of the aliens jumped at Samus, but broke like balloons against her shielding.

John rebelled against the idea that one of his men, Clint, had been lost to the new aliens. There must be someway to reverse the infection. He didn't even fully understand how the infection worked, but he refused to accept that Clint was a lost cause. Maybe if they could subdue him.

"The little ones are Infection forms. Keep them from getting to your neck!" She ordered John and Kelly. "They're weak against bullets and concussive blasts." John pulled out his modified MA5B assault rifle and switched it to the secondary mode. He fired at the smaller aliens.

At a lull in the firefight, when they had destroyed all of the little aliens and all that remained was the infected Spartan, who was making their lives hell with continuous gun fire John chose to speak again.

"There has to be a way to reverse it."

"No." Samus said as she dodged a burst of fire. "There isn't. I can't explain now."

Despite the fact that Samus had a highly advanced scanner, John refused to believe her. He had lost too many of his comrades, and he couldn't kill one of them. But he started firing on the infected Spartan. He could at least subdue Clint so they could bring him back to try and reverse what the alien had done to him.

Kelly followed his lead. One of the other doors burst open as more of the small aliens poured into the room. Samus broke from firing at the larger threat to protect John and Kelly from the parasites. Then she turned around and found that the human warriors were having difficulty hitting their target. The infection had enhanced his abilities so that he was on par with Kelly's speed. When they did manage to hit him, his shields broke the bullets and kept him from harm.

"Chief," she said as there was more banging on the third door. "You and me switch. Take care of the parasites." She walked forwards and John backed off. She could sense that they both were reluctant to kill a former friend. Samus narrowed her eyes and locked out her emotions and her strong empathy. She couldn't hold back.

John used his assault rifle to rain fire down on the parasites. They followed him as he ran around the room, lining up to be slaughtered. He heard Samus's grapple beam activate and assumed that she was tearing away the shields. He knew that it would be difficult with the shield's augmentations by the Chozo. He turned once while slaying the parasites to see that Samus; grapple beam had frozen Clint as the shields were torn away. She was firing at the Spartan with her plasma beam and Kelly joined in her fire with a shotgun. He turned back to the parasites.

Samus managed to a get hit onto Clint when his shields had died before they had recharged. She looked over at Kelly, who had stopped once the shields had begun to die. She was certain that Kelly was cross with her for firing upon the Spartan. Samus continued to fire upon what had been Clint and readied her grapple beam again. She heard more of the parasites flow into the room and was relieved to here John taking them out. She grabbed Clint with her grapple beam, draining his shields. She fired at him and was joined in by Kelly. As his Shield's began to die, Samus switched the modes of her gun. It was half white and half black. She charged up a blast infused it with ten missiles. The shot hit the infected soldier; a screeching attack of sonic booms destroyed his armor. Standing in a deformed silver skin suit provided by the Chozo was what had once been a Spartan. His flesh was mottling green and he stood hunched, half of his muscles had been destroyed and he looked fragile.

John looked over, temporarily distracted by the sonic boom and looked in horror at what had been his comrade. He had a fleeting thought of what a corpse would look like if it was buried and dug up three weeks later. Then he was snapped back to attention by the parasites. Kelly fell back from what had been her friend and watched as the infected super soldier went to grab the weapon that had been blasted out of its hand by Samus's attack. Its head was blown off by one of Samus's missiles. Clint dropped to the ground, a viscous green fluid flowed from the wound.

Samus went to the door they had come through and activated her plasma sword. With a vicious stab, she stuck the sword through the door and began to cut it open. John and Kelly covered her back as she worked with jarring, angry motions. The door clattered as she kicked it down onto the pool of human blood.

"Come on. Let's see if we can find the others before its too late."

John nodded and followed Samus out of the door. He took one last look at Clint's former and deformed body, and followed Samus out of the room silently. They came across more of the parasites as they ran through the complex. Samus pointed out a trail of blood.

"They went that way!" She exclaimed and raced after the path. John and Kelly followed. They ran through the complex, fighting off the aliens the entire way.

As they came into a room, John noticed that there were larger contacts on his motion tracker. He spotted a large alien walk nearby. It looked to be an Elite in strange armor at first, and then he realized that it was actually an infected Covenant soldier. John frowned. So these parasites had gotten to the aliens as well. He had no trouble joining in with Samus and Kelly to mow the aliens down after Samus scanned it.

They ran through the rooms, when they needed to get up to a higher place then they could jump, Samus used her space jump to get up and then used her grapple beam to fling the others to the top. As they raced further along, throwing caution to the wind to try and find the rest of Green Team, following a trail of blood that was beginning to fade away, as though the wound had been covered, they came across Covenant soldiers that had not been infected.

They came to a lift. Praying that it led upwards, they found it led down. The shaft was covered with fluorescent blue blood. They also came across infected Pirates. They were hard to take down, but Blue Team killed them as well.

They ran along and found another lift. They quickly got on, fighting off infected aliens and some others that didn't seem to have a base, and when they were killed, they burst into a rain of four more little parasites. The lift brought them upwards. Samus took the free moment to tell them what was going on.

"The entire race seems to be called the Flood. The little ones are Infection Forms. The ones that are fighting are Combat Forms, they are the mutated versions of the hosts that the Infection Forms hit. The other ones are Carrier Forms. They're old Combat Forms or heavily injured, but not dead, Combat Forms that incubate Infection Forms and release them. The Infection Forms hit by the spine and take over that way. Watch your neck. It's the weakest point in your armor that protects your spine. I don't think I need to say what will happen if they get there."

"What about Linda and Will?" John asked.

"I'm unsure. But I think that they're alright."

That was all that Samus could say, for at that moment, they were greeted by more Flood. They ran off the lift and found themselves at the entrance to the building. Samus waved the two Spartans forward. Her scanner was picking up trace amounts of human blood.

Once in the swamp the trail was lost. Samus tried to call her ship and found that the signal was jammed. She scanned the trees and snarled. Her plan to use its thermals to find the Spartans wouldn't work.

"Come on, we need to find a break in the forest. This place jams my lock on signal for my ship. Maybe they thought the same thing and are trying to get a rescue ship."

"Good idea." John responded. His mind was reeling with horror at the Flood. He had seen one of them, which he had thought was dead, jump up and start trying to hit him, without its head. He pressed the emotion to the back of his mind as much as he could and followed Samus.

They ran through the swamp, coming across all types of Flood. They fought their way through, finding themselves without much leftover ammo by the time the came across a large tower structure in the swamp. It cut through the trees. There were hundreds of Flood in the area. Samus frowned, she was fighting off exhaustion.

John was panting. The efforts of the past hour had left him winded. But he ignored it and rushed forwards, destroying more of the aliens. He saw a laser destroy an alien that had been about to attack him. He sighed in relief and looked up at what had come to his aid. It was a large flying creature. It had a glass eye that was glowing red. John noticed how similar it was to a beetle flying the air, except its equivalent of wings did not move to keep it aloft and the glass eye was placed at the bottom of the head. A laser shot from the eye, firing on more of the Flood. He noticed that it showed up as a yellow contact on his motion tracker

"Sentinels." Samus told him. "They have a barrier, blocking most of my scanner, but they don't seem to be hostile to us."

"They're showing up as having a friendly IFF," John replied.

"Good. Come on, let's climb this tower."

With that they began to climb up the tower that broke through the trees. There were several ledges that resembled diving boards stretching out from the sides. This made climbing up it very easy. As they broke through the top of the trees they heard the clatter of guns pointing at their heads, and rounds cycling into chambers.

John looked up as he steadied himself on the edge of the ledge. He looked into the two mirror visors of Spartans in front of him. He let out a soft seven-note whistle. The Spartans looked at each other and lowered their weapons. John noticed that one of them was a sniper rifle. Kelly stood up next to him and looked at the two Spartans in front of them. Samus climbed up and looked at the Spartans. John noticed that she activated her scanner.

"You're heavily injured," Samus said and then added, "but clean."

John sighed in relief. "Green Team. What happened?"

"We entered this room and these creatures just flooded in once the door locked behind us. We fought them off, but there were so many of them. Clint and I covered Will as he opened the door, but they, got to Clint." Linda said heavily.

"We wanted to bring him with us, but-" She said after a pause.

"It's better that you didn't." Samus said curtly. She called in her drop ship. Suddenly there was a high and thrilled voice behind them.

"_Five _Reclaimers? Protocol did not mention that."


	40. Chapter 21 Of Libraries

I've actually got a job. WOO-HOO!

Which means it's taking away precious writing time. ARGH!

* * *

**0049 Hours, September 2, 2552 (Military Calendar)**

**1234 kilometers from the **_**Migration**_** Blue Team Log**

All attention was fixed on the source of the trill voice. All weapons were raised to the alien in front of them. The voice seemed mechanical, and it didn't seemed to be made of organic materials. What they were warily glaring at was a construct of a silver alloy, small cylinders that formed to make the outline of a rounded cube. Inside it was a bright blue eye that changed the vibrancy of the glow as it continued to speak.

"Protocol only mentioned that there would be one, or two, Reclaimers. I was unaware that there would be five." It sounded excited.

Samus's hand shifted inside of her arm cannon. She bit her lip and then looked back at Linda, Will and Kelly. Then she looked at the Chief. She could sense the emotions of confusion and irritation flowing from him. She carefully used a thought to call her gunner ship to the ledge that they were on.

"The flood are spreading. We must stop them!" The construct exclaimed as Samus's ship came into view behind them.

Samus took her left hand off of her arm cannon and gestured to Kelly, Linda, and Will to get aboard the ship. Then she uploaded an order in Chozo binary from her suit to the ship. It would take them back to the _Migration_ and deliver an order to the Chozo AI that was keeping the ship functioning while Cortana and Adam were in the control room. She got a feeling that she and John would be unable to get back to the ship before the construct did something to them. The three Spartans looked at John and then jumped aboard in it.

Samus continued to stare down the construct. She and the Chief began to move away from it as it floated in the air and got ready to board the ship.

"I am 343 Guilty Spark, monitor of installation 04. Someone has released the flood. My duty is to keep them from leaving, but I require your assistance. Come, this way."

The Master Chief felt something like nausea flash over his body. He felt weird, and then noticed that a swirl of golden energy had flown around his body and then Samus's. He was going to turn and see if those in the drop ship were all right, but his vision faded. John thought for a moment that he had been killed until he saw that he was warping through the ring. He prepared himself for a crash landing as he rocketed towards the ground, but he simply passed through it. He came to a halt, alongside Samus, in an underground room. It was cavernous and dimly lit. His eyes quickly adjusted to the dark and he saw the room fairly well.

"We must activate the installation before it is too late, and to do that, we need to collect the index, Reclaimers."

The Master Chief fixed the sights of his weapon onto Guilty Spark. Samus had her scanner fixed on the machine.

"Don't bother, Chief." Samus said after a while.

"Hmm?" Guilty Spark inquired as it flew in closer to her. The Master Chief looked at the Chozo warrior.

"It has highly advanced shielding. Our weapons will do nothing to it." She answered the question in his mind before he voiced it.

John lowered his weapon, but continued to stare at the monitor with distrust. "So, what do we do?"

"Work with it." She suggested simply, "I have no ideas on how to get out of here."

"Are you quite finished, Reclaimers? The Flood are spreading, and we must act quickly."

John turned to watch the monitor float in front of them. He looked at Samus and saw that she shrugged. He kept his rifle raised as he started to follow. He heard Samus follow him carefully. When they came around a bend, they were greeted by a swarm of the parasitic creatures. He and Samus worked for a while to get the number of the aliens down to a manageable level. The monitor had floated back to them and was casting the area in an eerie blue light.

"We are near the index chamber." It said, ignoring the battle that they were in. "Please follow me, or you may become lost."

John and Samus fought their way through the thicket of Infection and Combat forms. But they continued to follow the blue glow on the floor that represented where the monitor was. They came through a narrow tunnel and found themselves in another room of monstrous proportions. The continued to walk along, going towards a brightly glowing object in what appeared to be the center of the room. They stopped several meters shy, as the floor gave way to a deep pit in the center of the room. The monitor floated up to them as John and Samus turned to fight back more of the Flood that had appeared behind them.

"The energy field above us contains the index. We must get up there." It said to them. The Master Chief heard Samus sigh and he couldn't help but agree with her. He had been unable to rest for intense combat for the past six hours; the only relief had been in the brief hour-long flight from the control room to the swamp. He followed the monitor, hoping that this mission wouldn't take very long.

"It'll take a while." Samus said to him as an aside while they fought their way through a swarm of Flood. He glanced at her sharply, wondering if she was capable of reading minds, not for the first time. They were backed against a wall, firing at the aliens that came around them from all sides. He felt something strike his heads and saw the charge bar on his shields drain a speck and he realized that they were coming from the wall above them. They sidled along the wall while firing upon the aliens. They came to a pair of doors, where the monitor was floating, and waiting for them.

"The security doors have sealed automatically." It told them. "Please wait here while I go access the controls to override them."

He exchanged a brief glance with the Hunter and they turned back to the aliens. They separated from being side-by-side to opposite ends of the doors. Jutting out from the side of the doors were sloping half-walls. The two warriors pressed themselves into corners as they continued to fight. With this arrangement, their backs were protected and they could kill any aliens that started to creep down the wall above the other's head. The Master Chief's motion tracker, and Samus radar were useless given the flood of enemies that were pouring in around them. As John saw his magazine empty, he found that he had no time to reload his assault rifle. Instead, he swapped it with the plasma rifle he had clipped to his waist. He had wanted to avoid using the Covenant based weapon, but he needed the infinite ammunition that it had.

The continued to fight the Flood for several minutes until the doors began to slide open. John and Samus slipped through the gap before it opened a fraction of the way. The door slid and sealed shut behind them. Before them was the monitor, bobbling in the air, looking down at them.

"Very good. Please follow closely. That portal was the first of ten."

John felt uneasy. He did not like the sound of fighting through ten to ten of the doors, especially if they were all sealed shut like that. He was switching between the regular and ice modes of the plasma rifle, trying to figure out which one was more effective against the flood. The Master Chief came to the conclusion that freezing them solid was the best option, especially with the Combat Forms. He was able to then shatter them by lashing out a leg and knocking them down as he ran forwards with Samus. She had decided to use her plasma rifle, he saw.

The Master Chief saw that most of the Combat Forms were armed with the weapons of the Covenant that they had infected. As for the Pirate Combat Forms, John left those to Samus. Her vast artillery was better handled to take down the armored flood. He fought off everything else and covered her as she fought them up to four at a time. The monitor floated along with them, bringing them along the correct path.

After they had gone through several minutes of combat with the Flood in the room that the first portal had led them to, Guilty Spark offered his opinion.

"Puzzling," it said. "You brought such ineffective weapons to combat the flood, despite containment protocols." The Master Chief saw that Samus gave the monitor a nasty look. Either it didn't notice, or paid no attention to her glower. It just continued onwards.

He was having trouble with a Combat form; it kept dodging his icy blasts. Eventually he got and Samus kicked it heavily. It shattered into millions of slivers of green ice.

"That," she said with punctuation, "Was that monitor."

John continued along, chasing after Guilty Spark. He glanced over to Samus, who was running along as well.

"You're the one who said we should work with it."

She paid no attention to his comment.

"So, what's wrong?"

"It insulted Chozo technology." The Master Chief vaguely understood why she was so upset. It had said the weapons were bad, and the Chozo had upgraded all of their weapons. He felt that his weapons were doing a good job, but he hadn't thought to argue with Guilty Spark's announcement. But he knew that Samus had some deep attachment to the technologically advanced birds, she had said that their world was her home world, so she had possibly taken offense to the monitor's distain of the Chozo weapon.

They continued through the room and came to a ramp that led them lower down. For a moment they looked around for the monitor, but could not spot the blue glow in the air. So they went down and found themselves in a narrowing and twisting corridor that was riddled with aliens. The Master Chief stopped Samus before one of the corners and tossed a grenade into the hallway. He heard the explosion and the sound of flesh being ripped apart. When they turned, more Flood were replacing their fallen comrades. The fought through and came to a ramp tat led upwards. The monitor was waiting for them, humming to itself.

There were more flood waiting for them above. They fought off these creatures as well. The Master Chief waited and watched Samus fight off four Pirate Combat Forms that were waiting for them. He took care of the Covenant Combat forms, along with some of the Infection forms that came up. Then the two destroyed the Carrier forms that were slowly waddling towards them. They exploded into four more Infection Forms. Those were quickly taken care of and they continued onwards.

As they slowly proceeded, fighting off more of the Flood as they went, they came to a room with many pillars along the walls. They were both startled as red laser beams came on a Flood infected Pirate and destroyed it. The Master Chief looked up and spotted one of the sentinels, the creatures that had come to their rescue earlier in the swamp.

Guilty Spark floated down to the two and announced, "These sentinels will augment your combat systems. But I suggest that you upgrade to a class twelve battle skin, at least. Right now your models only," it paused and spoke again, "scan in as a class five and six. They are unsuited for this type of work."

"Halfway there," Samus said to the Master Chief as she fired at an infection form. The Master Chief wondered what she was talking about before he realized she was talking about their suits. So they'd work if they were twice as good. Now the Chief was a little sore at Guilty Spark. His suit had been upgraded twice since he had gotten its original model and it had been enhanced twice on this mission as well. He felt perfectly satisfied with his armor, but now this monitor was telling him that it was not good enough. He ignored those feelings as he returned to fighting the Flood infected Covenant. The Master Chief wondered how irritated Samus was with Guilty Spark for that comment.

They continued through the room and found themselves approaching a lift. The monitor called out to them. "Pardon me. A plasma conduit breach in section 5524 has disrupted

power flow to a revitic maintenance assembly."

Samus walked backwards to the lift along with the Chief as they backed towards the lift, fighting off the Flood. "I wonder if he's naturally scatter brained." Samus said irritably. John was feeling resentment towards the monitor as well. During their battles, it was humming calmly and serenely as it floated above the chaos below while they struggled to fight off the mass of Flood attacking them.

Once they were on the lift, it rose upwards. The Master Chief wondered if there would be a chance to rest a little. He was exhausted. He checked his mission log; they had already been in this underground facility for forty-five minutes of non-stop fighting. He heard a rumble as something heavy landed on the lift.

He sighed and decided that this was no chance for him to rest.

"WHAT THE HELL!" Samus exclaimed as he turned to face what had joined them. He was surprised to see a large monstrosity before him. It was partly translucent and hunched over menacingly. It had rows of razor sharp teeth. The Master Chief brought up his plasma rifle.

"What is that thing, Samus?" He asked as he edged away from the creature that stood in the center of the twenty meter wide circular lift.

"An Omega Metroid." She said. "Ice is its weakness."

John circled the creature and fired his plasma rifle. The creature shrieked and turned on him. He backed away as it rushed him. The creature grabbed John and stared squeezing. He felt his energy drain. The creature shrieked suddenly as Samus hit it with a frigid blast. It loosed John and circled at her. As it lashed out to grab her, Samus jumped up and over it, firing another icy blast.

The Master Chief slowly got up and fired his rifle at the creature as often as he could. The Omega Metroid continued to shriek as it tried to grab the Master Chief again. Then it was overwhelmed by a large blast of ice from Samus's arm cannon. The Master Chief collapsed onto his knees. Samus rushed over towards him and put her left arm on his shoulder. His shielding sparked at the contact.

"You okay?" He could see her eyebrows were furrowed in concern. He took a deep breath and steadied himself. He slowly rose as the lift came to a stop.

"Yes." He said. The Master Chief looked at Samus's visor as she continued to look at him in concern. He walked past her and continued onto the hallway just beyond. Floating above in the air was Guilty Spark.

The machine was humming to itself. It looked down at them as a wave of flood greeted them. "Oh, hello!" It said cheerfully.


	41. Chapter 21 Of Libraries 2

Samus grunted as she fired off at the misshapen creatures. "Say, have any other creatures shown up on Halo?" She shouted up at the monitor as they continued to fight.

"Why, now that you mention it, yes. I can't believe I didn't say this before, Reclaimers, I suppose that with all of my concern focused on the reclamation of the index, and it slipped my mind. But there are some other parasitic life forms on the installation. They float in the air. They appeared after a recent meteor strike. I have no idea what they are, however, and have enacted restraint protocols on the life forms."

"Metroids." He heard Samus hiss.

"Metroids?" The monitor said as it floated down towards the two. An infection form jumped at the monitor, but burst against its shielding. "What are those?"

Samus refrained from answering as several combat forms came at them. The Flood overwhelmed the two warriors for several minutes, until there was a lull in the rush of monsters.

"Parasitic creatures that eat life energy. There are several forms of Metroid. They float in the air, with the exception of an Omega Metroid, and they feed on Phazon."

"And what is Phazon?"

"Radioactive substance." Samus snapped as she fought off a wave of combat forms. The Master Chief was focused on the infection forms coming in groups of twos and threes. Then he moved onto the carrier forms that were waddling up to them.

The monitor looked at the two for a long moment, ignoring the infection forms that were futilely attacking it. Then it hummed and flew back to the air above.

As they continued onwards they came to a locked door.

"Please wait here," It told them as more flood swarmed to them. "I need to deactivate the security systems."

It took five minutes of fighting, but the door eventually opened. The monitor flew back towards them, right past them, and through the door. While it went over their heads it began humming and then muttered, "Ah, I am a genius."

"And I love Space Pirates," Samus said grouchily as she and the Master Chief continued forwards.

He looked over at her and nodded. He had been thinking some other sarcastic thoughts to himself at the monitor's statement. He wondered how she was able to continue to fight so well, as angry as he could tell that she was.

His thoughts were cut off as a combat form jumped at him, striking at him with its elbow. The Master Chief rolled to the side and fired on the creature. It fell to the ground as a statue of ice and shattered.

The Master Chief noticed that the Sentinels were no longer flying around them to help them to kill the Flood.

"Flood activity has caused a failure in the drone control subsystem. I must reset the backup unit. Please continue on. I will rejoin you when I have completed my task." The monitor told them. The Master Chief nodded. Samus looked at him after the monitor had flown off, back the way that they had come.

"What do you think?" She said as she hit a flood carrier form. It's bulbous and bulging body exploded like a grenade, releasing the infection forms it had been carrying.

"Think of what?" He destroyed them with a few heated blasts of the plasma rifle.

"Which direction?" She said pointedly. He looked up from the ground and noticed that the path they could continue on split into two different directions.

He nodded to the right hand side. "That way." Samus nodded and followed him. He marched forwards, and she took care of the flood that came up behind them.

His eyes searched the gloomy atmosphere of the underground facility, nighttime vision being pushed far, even with the augmentations he had received years ago. His foot touched against something metal. He glanced down and saw that he had tapped an assault rifle. He bent down and picked it up, along with the extra three packs of ammunition lying nearby. He looked around, trying to find if there was a human corpse that this had belonged to.

"Dead end," Samus said as she looked around, not caring about anything on the floor.

The Master Chief took in her statement and started to backtrack to the original divide, while still looking around. His eyes spotted a body lying on the ground. It was human in shape, but covered in heavy MJOLINIR armor. There was no blood around it. He moved towards the body and saw three burn marks on the helmet.

"Samus," He said to call her attention to the body. He heard the beeping noises of her scanner activating a split-second later.

«C'jinlor!» He recognized her exclamation as one of annoyance, characterized by her frequent usage.

"What is it?" He asked. After she didn't begin to respond, he looked to her. Samus's eyes, he could see from the half-opaque visor, were darting around the air around them. He looked back to the body and recognized it as Spartan 001, Serena.

"Chief, we need to get out of this area." She said calmly as she began to turn around slowly.

"Why." He kept his eyes on Serena's body as he backed towards Samus.

"She's dead." Samus said as an answer to his question. The pair slowly retraced their steps.

"I figured that much." He replied dryly and added her name to his MIA list, right below Clint. It was a procedure devised by ONI brass to keep the image of the Spartans being invincible up to keep morale from fading from the rest of the human race. Any Spartan killed was always listed as missing in action.

"Did the Flood kill her?" He asked once they were nearly back to the split.

"Didn't help, I'll wager, but they're not the cause of death." Samus responded.

"What did then?" He inquired. At that moment he heard a sound that sounded like a screech. He looked up at the source, just in time to see a flying creature drop onto his head. It had three talon like pincers that latched onto him. He tried to dislodge the creature, but it was stuck firmly in place by the pincers. His shields flared and were instantly killed. He felt his energy being drained rapidly.

"Drop to the ground, Chief!" Samus shouted to him.

He did as commanded. John felt the creature get ripped violently from his head. He could hear the blood beating through his skull. He reached a hand towards where the creature had latched on, and found that his armor was still airtight. He took a shaky breath and stood up. His shields flickered as they began to recharge at a snail's pace.

He saw Samus had frozen whatever it was that had latched onto him and it shattered as she struck it with a missile. She turned towards him.

"You okay?"

He nodded his head and shook the fatigue from his body. The Master Chief looked towards her and saw that she was walking around a corner. He lagged behind her, barely able to get his legs to respond. He saw that the monitor was floating in the air nearby, waiting for them. The sentinels had flown up and were destroying many of the Flood.

He lifted the assault rifle he had picked up and picked off a swarm of infection forms flowing towards him.

"The sentinels can use their weapons to manage the Flood only for a short time." It replied after seeing them fight off the Flood. "Speed is of the essence," it chided them as they followed it.

"Hey, Guilty Spark," Samus called out as they reached an alcove. The Master Chief saw five more of the creatures phase through the floor in front of them.

"Yes, Reclaimer?" He inquired cheerfully.

"Keep the Flood at bay." Samus said scornfully. John saw her glance back towards him.

"Of course, but why?" Guilty Spark began. The Master Chief was backing away from the creatures, into the alcove. The monitor stopped as it spotted the creatures, "Those are Metroids, are they not?"

"Correct." Samus said as she tapped a command into her suit. It disappeared and she stood there in her blue jump suit.

The Master Chief stared at her. He wondered what she was thinking. An infection form leapt at her, but he shot it with a controlled burst of his assault rifle. She jumped at a Metroid that was flying at him to latch on again. It stopped as she landed on top of the creature and dug her hands into its gelatinous body. John saw that the creature had three nuclei inside of it. He turned away from the Metroid and fired at the Flood coming in closer. The sentinels aided his fatigued aim and reaction time.

Samus dropped to the ground. Her hair had changed to a light lavender shade and her skin had become transparent, making her veins, arteries, and nerves clearly visible. Her eyes were a shade of neon green. The Metroid she had landed on had fallen to the ground, the jelly inside of it's clear skinned body creating a puddle around it. She looked at a Metroid that was beginning to head towards the Master Chief and struck at it with her elbow. She jumped at another Metroid near her and grabbed it with both hands, digging her fingers deep into its body. In seconds it fell to the ground in the same state as the first Metroid she had attacked.

When the Metroids were dead, she pulled out her emergency pistol and fended off a combat form that she had been skirting around for the past fifteen seconds. A sentinel destroyed it with a blast from the glass eye at the bottom of its body.

She turned back to the Master Chief.

"Before we get rushed again, take off your helmet."


	42. Chapter 22 Of Indexes

**0425 Hours, September 2, 2552 (Military Calendar)**

**1234 kilometers from the **_**Migration**_** Blue Team Log**

John stared at Samus's change. He stared at her for several seconds, taking in the fact that he could see her arteries and veins pulsing with her heartbeat.

"Chief. Come on. Just do it. That Metroid and the Omega on the lift drained your life energy. I can help you, but you need to take off your helmet." He nodded and disengaged the lock on his helmet. "Bend down." He decided it would be easier on his body to get on a knee. He saw her remove the gloves on her hand and twist them around the holster on her hip. She put her pistol away and put her hands on his head.

He felt energy flow into him. He looked around, trying to discern if there were any of the parasitic creatures nearby. After a full thirty seconds she removed her hands. He looked up and saw that her body had returned to normal. Her hair was blonde, eyes blue, and her skin a vivacious peach color. She put her gloves back on and reengaged her suit as he put his helmet back on.

At that moment more of the creatures rushed at them. The Master Chief rolled to the side and brought up his assault rifle. He fired upon a combat form and made it fall to the ground.

The looked up, just in time to notice that Guilty Spark had disappeared and that they were at what appeared to be a dead end. The sentinels had disappeared as well. He saw Samus look at him from the corner of his eye and sighed. This was beginning to become tiresome.

Then he noticed that the flow of flood had fallen to a trickle, and only infection forms at that. With his shields fully charged he decided to ignore them, unless larger targets appeared. Infection forms that jumped at him popped like balloons against his sturdy shields.

"Samus," He said as he turned towards her. "What was that?"

"What was what?" She asked as she looked around, as though to avoid his mirrored visor.

"Earlier." He said as simply as possible. "When you," he paused, not wanting to say that her skin seemed as though it had disappeared and he could see her arteries, which should have been too deep to be even glanced at, even with the palest of skin. He thought that statement would be too civilian, too obvious. She should have noticed that with her hands when she placed them on his head. The eye and hair color change had been strange as well. He finally found an end to the beginning of his thought, "replaced the energy the Metroids had stolen."

"It was the only way to make sure you'd survive this. Metroids killed that Spartan we saw earlier. Not the Flood. Strong as you are, you couldn't keep running much longer." She shifted, sensing his subconscious resentment at her wording beyond his confusion at what she had done. Samus amended her statement with, "I'd have been in the same condition too, Chief."

"That's not it." He said.

"Then what is it?"

"You're avoiding my question."

"What is your question then?"

"How did you do that?" He wanted to tell her not to say it was something with her Chozo technology, because her body had changed in what seemed to be race, but he held his tongue. That statement was again too obvious, too civilian. She would have noticed that her body had changed at the least.

Samus spotted something and marched forward. He followed her, dogging her trail to make sure that she didn't duck out of answering his question again.

"How did I do that," she repeated slowly and thoughtfully. They came to a lift and got on it. "I'm not sure I want to ride the elevator." Samus noted aloud. John agreed with her, and continued to wait silently for an answer to his question.

"Well," She said as she turned to him. "Metroid are weak against the cold. It destroys them faster then anything else."

"That's not-" he began, but he was cut off by a loud thud.

He turned around and saw that another Omega Metroid had landed on the lift. He brought up his plasma rifle and fired shots of sub-zero air at the creature. It roared and rushed at him. He dodged to the side and fired several more rounds at it. It roared and screeched as Samus hit it with a fully charged blast from her ice beam. Then the sides of her muzzle peeled backwards like a banana's peel and a super-chilled missile hit the creature. It froze solid as John hit it simultaneously with five more shots from his rifle. Another missile sent it flying into shards, scattered across the bottom of the elevator.

He turned back to Samus. The lift was sliding to a gentle stop. She seemed to have forgotten his question as she walked with her back to him into the open hallway on the third level they were able to see.

The path divided, and Samus walked down the left one. John followed her and saw that there was a battle raging between the sentinels and the Flood. Hovering around in the air were several Metroids. One latched onto a sentinel. Moments later the craft fell to the ground in pieces. John mentally noted that the Metroid could take the energy from all life forms, even mechanical ones.

He raised his rifle and froze the Metroids in the air while Samus used her plasma beam to destroy the flood. He noticed that she seemed to ignore them now that he could destroy the creatures. He wondered why, but continued to fire at them. Three icy blasts froze the Metroids, and with another he was able to shatter them, ensuring that they were unable to thaw and attack his allies or himself.

They fought their way forward, down a ramp, and into a hallway. They made their way through the hallway. As they pressed on, the fight became rougher; they were overwhelmed by what seemed to be hundreds of the aliens. As the fight became more arduous, John found it easier to think. Time slowed to the term Kelly had coined as SPARTAN time. With adrenaline pumping through his body, time seemed to slow before him. This allowed him to think not only about the fight, but about Samus as well.

She had distinctly avoided his question before with the same practiced ease that she had refused to answer almost all other inquiries into her life. She gave an answer that was reasonable to assume she had misunderstood his question originally, but he knew better. She seemed to be able to read his mind, so he knew that she had always known his question, and yet she gave him the wrong answer. That was always a sign to stop asking questions, he had gotten similar deflections from his superiors when asking about his next mission a little too much. At that point he normally shut up. But this question needed to be answered. He needed to know what he was working with. He figured she could drain and transfer energy without her suit on based on her actions and what had happened to the Metroids, but he wanted to know why that was. When he had asked again, she had simply ignored the question and said something on an unrelated matter. He knew that she would not answer his question at all after that.

The Master Chief clipped the plasma rifle to his hip, pulled up the assault rifle and fired at a combat form. It fell to the ground and he gave it a dead check, shooting it in the chest several times. Normally dead checks were administered to the head, but he had seen headless combat forms get up. He had seen some combat forms burst open like a defiled flower and an infection burst from the abdomen and explode. He thought that shooting the infection form, presumed to be in the chest, would keep the combat form down for the count. The Master Chief pressed on and they went up a ramp. In the open room above, sentinels were destroying the flood. There were several Metroid in the air. He started to fire at them.

He noticed that a Metroid, which had just gotten off of a combat form, latched onto another Metroid, which had been given a glancing blow by a sentinel's eye beam. When they separated, the injured Metroid seemed to be fully healed.

John thought about that while he killed the Metroids. That seemed to be what Samus had done. Take energy from one life form and give it to another. He pondered about that for several seconds. It took several seconds to digest. It was possible that Samus could be part Metroid. The thought hung in his head; it was almost as bad as if he had figured that she was part Flood. Metroids were parasitic creatures that stole life, they were horrific creatures to contemplate, not as bad as the Flood, but still horrific. He had ignored the feeling of fear and anxiety that had welled up in him when he had first seen the Flood and which had intensified with the entrance of the Metroids. It boiled when he came to that objective conclusion about Samus. He forcibly pushed it to the back of his mind.

Of course, that didn't seem possible. On basic logic, he concluded that the genetics of a Metroid and a human could not cross well, even with artificial means. Samus could not have survived if she was part Metroid. He dismissed the conclusion and chalked up the similarity as coincidence. He continued to think and wondered about the Chozo. It seemed more reasonable that she was part Chozo, to him that combination seemed more plausible. He wondered about their skin, it was possible their skin was clear, as their bodies were covered in feathers. And being part, Samus could not have the feathers.

But that still did not explain why she was able to look like a human and had only recently taken on that appearance.

As he continued to automatically fight the Flood, he noticed that there was a large blue wall with several pillars in the room, it seemed as though they were columns, but he doubted that the structure needed their support. They followed the right hand wall, as the humming monitor guided them. In minutes, they were at another locked door.

"Please wait here," the monitor directed them. It floated away, and the sentinels followed it.

After it was gone, Samus grumbled under her breath, "As though we had a choice in the matter." She punctuated her statement with a blast from her arm cannon. It struck a carrier form and it exploded into four infection forms.

They backed into corners at opposite sides of the door and waited, firing and Flood that appeared. When Metroid appeared, the Master Chief took care of them with his plasma rifle and Samus doubled her efforts on the Flood. It was several minutes before the monitor opened the door and reappeared near them

They continued onwards, following it through the portal. By his count, there were quite a few more portals. He was already aggravated and exhausted. He wanted this mission to be over.

The monitor spoke aloud as they conquered several more of the parasitic aliens, Flood and Metroid alike. "Your environment suit should serve you well when the Flood begins to alter the atmosphere. You are a good planner."

"Wait, they're going to alter the atmosphere?" John asked.

The monitor ignored him; it seemed to be lost in thought. Samus looked at him and shrugged. They continued onwards, greatly aided by the help of the sentinels.

"Does your scanner say anything about that?" He asked in a lull in the battle.

Samus shook her head. "Nothing about changing the atmosphere. And I guess he won't say anything more about the matter."

At that moment they both heard it repeat itself. "Ah, I am a genius." Following that was a chirping giggle.

"And I'm a Vice Admiral." John said dryly. He was beginning to get annoyed at the monitor. There were no more aliens in the area.

He saw Samus lift up her arm cannon and fire at the monitor. Guilty Spark stopped in its path and turned to look down at Samus. It flew over to her.

"We have much more important business here, Reclaimer."

"Yeah." Samus said with anger ground into her voice. She continued walking forwards. "So what is this place, this installation?"

"The installation was well conceived. It is surely the only way to end the Flood threat." It replied cheerfully and continued on ahead of them. It floated backwards to talk to them.

"Okay, so what does it do?" Samus said. John could hear her strained patience.

"It contains the Flood." Guilty Spark said and then paused. When it spoke again, it seemed to be saying something it had just thought about, "The Flood must not escape the installation. They consume all."

"Well that makes sense. But how did they get out in the open, then?"

"I would conjecture that the other species currently on the installation is responsible for releasing the Flood. They seem most persistent in their attempts to access restricted areas."

"Alright, so the Covenant and Space Pirates released the Flood. But why are they being held here?" The Master Chief interjected.

"Well, naturally, the Flood is simply too dangerous to release and mass sterilization protocols may again need to enacted. Of course, samples were kept here after the last catastrophic outbreak for a study. It seems that decision may have been an error."

"Mass sterilization protocols?" John repeated dubiously.

"Of course. You already know about all that, Reclaimer. How couldn't you?"

"It's been a while." Samus said calmly.

"Of course. Although for myself, a self-repairing artificial intelligence, 101, 217 local years would be not much, I suppose that for beings like yourself, it would prove to be a little trying on the memory banks."


	43. Chapter 22 Of Indexes 2

"Uh, right." Samus said and looked at John. He nodded.

"And you've been by yourself." He said more then asked.

"Of course. Is this a test? Don't you remember that there was only one monitor in charge of each of the seven installations, Reclaimer? It has been quite dull since you were last here, but now I find myself rather enthused. What about you?"

John was thinking of other ways to describe this ordeal, but kept his mouth shut. They found themselves required to go through a partially opened door into another room. This too, was surprisingly devoid of parasitic alien activity. The monitor had floated away, chirping nonsensical comments to itself. John ignored it and looked around the room.

"Reclaimer." John said once he was sure that the grave-like appearance was not a clever trap manufactured by the Flood. However, they continued straight at a cautious pace.

"Apparently it thinks that we're something else." Samus said.

"Right."

"We should probably go along with its delusions."

"Right."

"You're still bothered by that Spartan we saw earlier."

He was taken aback by how simply she said it. It was as though Samus had once again pierced his mind to his backwater thoughts.

"I don't blame you. We should probably ask him about that."

"You said that we shouldn't bother firing at it." He said, ignoring her statement.

"It got on my nerves."

He nodded at the sentiment. Many times he had been tempted to do the same, but he had been pressed to focus on other things each time. And then afterwards his military training had stopped him from firing at the monitor, who was an ally.

John looked up and found himself rather irritated. They had come face to face with another locked door.

He heard the signal screech of a Metroid and immediately ducked to the side while turning around and leveling his gun at where he had been. The Chief stopped short and had to consider what he was looking at for several seconds. It was a floating Metroid with bubbled green skin. It looked like a Metroid corpse reanimated several weeks later. In addition to its talons, there were several tentacles hanging from its bottom.

"What the hell!" He exclaimed as the Metroid lunged at him again. He rolled to the side and fired his gun. It dodged the relatively slow ice blast.

The Metroid lunged at him again and he ducked the attack. He felt heat at his back and spared a glance upwards and was greeted with a wall of fire. He looked over for the source of the fire and saw that it was flamethrower being spewed from Samus's arm cannon. She quickly turned and destroyed a collection of infection forms and carrier forms. She checked the flamethrower off and began to fire plasma at a combat form.

The Master Chief had gotten up already and was helping her to cut through the flow of Flood with his assault rifle. He saw the forms of several more of the strange Metroids, along with half a dozen regulars, phase through the floor.

"I'll take the infected ones!" Samus shouted to him. The corpse-like Metroids were showered with plasma.

He brought out his plasma rifle and began to fire ice at the regular Metroids. It took four shots to kill each, and several combat forms were surrounding him. There was no time to single out the Metroids. He jumped over the combat forms, firing his plasma rifle with one hand and the assault with his other. It was an awkward form of duel wielding, but he had no choice. Samus was tied up with several more of the Flood Metroid crossovers and the combat forms could knock out his shields by an eighth of a charge with each blow. He had trouble aiming the assault rifle, but with some effort he was able to control the kickback by holding the butt of the rifle against his chest plate and firing.

When his assault rifle ran out of ammunition, he put it on the holster on his hip and fired at the Flood with the plasma rifle in its regular form. When more Metroids appeared, he continuously shifted back and forth between the modes to make up for the lack of weapon.

They were fighting for several more minutes. It appeared as though the Flood and Metroids were making up for lost time with the empty rooms from before by tripling their numbers and efforts now. After what had appeared to be an eternity, the door behind them opened. Guilty Spark flew in from the ceiling and passed over them.

"Please stay close. Time is short," it commanded briskly.

As they backed through the door, laser beams shot over their heads, striking at the Combat forms and infected Metroids.

John vaguely wondered where the sentinels had been earlier, but decided to merely count his blessings. He drew his assault rifle and changed the clip. A fresh clip of ammunition came in with a satisfying clang of metal on metal.

John turned around and walked forward. Samus ran over and turned her back to him. She walked backwards in a low crouch as they continued forwards, covering each other. Overhead the monitor was humming cheerfully and talking to itself.

"The installation was specifically built to study and contain the Flood. Their survival as a race was dependant upon it. I am grateful to see that some of them survived to reproduce."

He was about to say something to that when Samus shouted angrily. "But I thought you said the decision to keep them here might have been in error!"

Guilty Spark merely seemed to ignore her as it continued to float forwards. The Master Chief was having difficulty following the monitor, which floated so high the glow it cast on the ground was large and faint, and watching out for Flood. With the help of the sentinels, he was able to focus mainly on the plethora of Metroids that had appeared in the hallway that they were now in.

In three minutes, John saw another lift just beyond an opening. He jumped onto the lift, turning around to help Samus with the Flood. She continued to crouch backwards. The lift had risen several inches above the floor level, which caused her to trip, landing roughly on her back on the lift, her legs off of the elevator. John fired at the Flood with his assault rifle and yanked Samus fully onto the lift with his other. The lift had begun to rise, and it seemed that immediately after he had done so, the open space had cut away; he could only imagine what would have happened to her at the acceleration that the lift was going at.

She stood up. "Thanks." She muttered to him.

Then she suddenly lifted her arm cannon up into the air, ice charging at the tip. He was startled, but fell to the side, thinking that she was aiming at a Metroid. He had heard the screech, but his motion tracker had remained empty. Suddenly he felt as though one of the creatures had latched onto him. His shields drained and he turned to see what Samus had been pointing at. A red Metroid floated in the air. It had a long tentacle instead of three talons. He wondered what it was as he noticed that the tentacle was pointing at him. There seemed to be a barely visible string of turquoise energy coming from him and flowing to the Metroid. It was suddenly turned into ice, and the lift slammed into it as it was no longer able to keep itself rising with the lift.

He looked at Samus.

"Hunter Metroid. Watch out for their long distance attack." She said as the lift slowed to a stop. "You alright?"

"Yeah." He grunted and prepared his weapons.

"Let's run as fast as we can, sound good?" Samus said.

He nodded.

When the lift stopped, they ran out, wanting to be out of this place as quickly as they could. They headed to their right, ignoring the slower carrier forms. They fired at Metroids and Infected Metroids as they ran; the combat forms seemed to have disappeared. They got to a ramp that led them downwards and through several hallways.

In the narrow corridors were the combat and infection forms. As they continued onwards, they had to stop from time to time to fire at the Flood they ran past that were catching up, but otherwise they continued running until they were out of the narrow corridors and into a larger room. Guilty Spark was waiting to their right in front of a locked door. They ran over and took up positions at either side, firing at the Flood that were rushing at them.

"I will deactivate the security lock." It said as it began to fly off. "Wait here."

They had already assumed that and fought more of the Flood that that seemed to come out of nowhere. There were a few Metroids that appeared, and John easily took care of them. He was exhausted, and he could tell that Samus was beginning to tire as well.

This time the swarm of enemies was not as trying as the last and the fight seemed to be rather short when the doors opened. They had killed all the enemies that greeted them and were able to walk forward into the next room. The monitor was hovering above them.

Guilty Spark flew down and seemed to frown at them. "Please follow closely," it chided, "time is short."

They jogged through the next room, firing at random intervals at threatening enemies. John stopped when he noticed that a body on the floor. It belonged to another Spartan. He recognized the Spartan as 008- Li. He looked up and saw a group of five of the red Metroids. It took the two of them a minute to neutralize the enemies. John bent down afterwards and picked up Li's weapon.

"Ah, one of the other Reclaimers." Guilty Spark said, noticing the focus of their attention. "One of the two that I found somewhere else. I had them start at the same point as you two did. They did quite well." It sounded angry suddenly, "Until those Metroids killed them. I had hopes for this one, but those red ones killed him." It floated onwards.

"Thank you for destroying those abominations." It said, each word punctuated by anger. "Protocol never mentioned how to deal with those creatures."

After that it turned to them again. "Please follow closely. We're almost at the index. Time is very short."

They followed the monitor to another locked door. "I can take care of this one right here." It said. The door began to open, but it stopped with just a small hole in the center. They heard the sounds of gears straining. "And the index is right through there." Guilty Spark said with disappointment. "Please-" It began.

"We'll jump through." Samus said, cutting it off. "No need for a larger opening."

She fired at a combat form that was leaping through the opening and jumped upwards. At the highest point in her ark, her legs glowed; she curled and tumbled through the air. She landed in the opening and turned to face John. He wondered how he could get up as she braced herself in the opening with her arm cannon pressed against the door above the opening. She slung her left arm forward, her grapple beam lashed out and wrapped around him. She whipped him upwards and drew it backwards. As he was about to crash into her, she jumped down and deactivated the beam. He soared through the opening and landed on his chest several meters beyond her. He rolled to the side and got to his feet, shaking disorientation from his head.

He paused for a heart beat as he saw the swarm of enemies directly in front of them. There were hundreds, possibly thousands of Flood and Metroids. The monitor flew past them and into to a blue beam in the center of a circular part of the floor.

He felt something crash into him, grab his shoulder to keep him in front, and carry him forwards. He tried to get off of whatever it was. He noticed plasma firing from his right and realized that Samus had activated her speed boosters to get them through to the beam. He lifted up his plasma rifle and fired at a few of the Flood that had lifted up the weapons that their hosts had had and were using to fire had him and Samus. His shields took a severe beating, but when he felt Samus leap into the beam, he was still in one piece.

"Very interesting maneuver, Reclaimer. I did not expect a class six battle skin to have that capability." Guilty Spark said as the circular part of the floor turned out to be a lift and it descended as they were carried down the beam.

"The energy barrier surrounding the index will deactivate when we reach the ground floor." It told them as they gently descended. After a minute they reached the ground floor, and the brightly glowing object that had been floating in the center of the index chamber earlier.

"You may now retrieve the index," it told them. Samus nodded at John. He went over to the green energy rod capped with something black at the top and had three black rings that were missing sections rotating about it closely. He touched the top and the rings stopped rotating and shrunk into the green rod. It glowed for a moment before something popped out from the top. He grabbed the object; it looked like an enlarged and elongated golfing tee. He held the top, which was black, flipped the index upside down and examined the neon green end. After a second energy spark from the eye in Guilty Spark and it grabbed the index. The index was absorbed into the monitor.

"Protocol requires that I take possession of the index for transport. Your organic form renders you vulnerable to infection. The index must not fall into the hands of the Flood before we reach the control room and activate the installation."

A golden light surrounded it. He looked over to Samus and saw that the same light surrounded her. He felt himself being transported again in a wave of vertigo. "The flood is spreading! We must hurry!" He heard Guilty Spark exclaim before all noise left him in the transport.


	44. Chapter 23 Of Betrayals

**0825 Hours, September 2, 2552 (Military Calendar)**

**570 kilometers from the **_**Migration**_** Blue Team Log**

John came back together in the control room where they had left Cortana and Adam. He heard Samus shift on her feet next to him. He looked around the room. There was the replica of Halo arching high above them. The narrow walkway, and the holographic display of the planet Halo orbited. However, there was no sign of either AI. He and Samus stayed put while they tried to figure out what was happening.

The monitor was again chatting away to itself until it noticed that neither one was moving, just looking around the control room.

"Is," It said as it floated back to them, "Something wrong?"

"No." John said.

"Nothing." Samus replied with a swift sigh.

"Splendid." It said cheerfully. "Shall we?" And it again floated towards the control panel that Adam and Cortana should have been above.

Samus looked at him and he looked over to her. Samus sighed and gestured to Guilty Spark. He nodded and they walked forwards. They followed the AI, which was humming, to itself.

It floated just above the holographic panel and spoke as they were halfway across the walkway. "Unfortunately my usefulness to this particular endeavor has come to an end. Protocol does not allow units with my classification to perform a task as important as the reunification of the index with the core. That final step is reserved for you, Reclaimer."

While it had been talking it floated around Samus and John and over to the Master Chief's right, while Samus was on the left. He extended his hand and the monitor spewed out the index. He took it and inserted into a slot on the panel. He wasn't sure why he knew to put it there, but he did. Holographic displays appeared in a pale dusty green. They moved around and collapsed together into a fog. John and Samus looked around at some other holographic displays, wondering what was going to happen.

The monitor looked at the holograms as they began to disappear and down at the panel. Then it looked at John and Samus. "Odd," it noted, "That wasn't supposed to happen."

"Oh really?" An irritated female voice rang out. The two AI's appeared just above the control panel. In a blast of energy, Guilty Spark fell to the ground and skidded to a stop several meters away.

"Cortana?" John asked.

"Adam? What's going on?"

Red algorithms flowed across Cortana's body as her eyes seemed to look like laser beams. She stared at Guilty Spark angrily. Adam's avatar looked annoyed as he stood with his hands curled into the small of his back.

"For the past several hours," he began, but was cut off by Cortana.

"We've been watching you two help get that thing get ready to slit our throats." She snapped angrily, animating herself vehemently to add affect to her words.

"For the past eight hours." Adam added.

"Hold on." John said. "He's our ally."

"Oh!" Cortana said. She seemed to be sarcastically aghast at her anger. "I didn't realize. He's your ally, is he? Your friend?" She stopped and half-shouted in anger, "Do you have any idea what that bastard almost made you do?"

"Yes," John said calmly, "activate Halo's defenses and destroy the Flood."

"That's what the index is for, isn't it?" Samus inquired, there was deep suspicion in her voice.

Adam began to respond as he made the index appear between himself and Cortana.

"Two constructs." Guilty Spark said as it floated up and over towards them, cutting Adam off. "In the core?" It asked as though it were surprised by something that was irritating. After a moment it said, "That is absolutely unacceptable."

"Sod off." Cortana told it.

"What impertinence!" Guilty Spark exclaimed as it floated higher, as though hit there by Cortana's statement. "I shall purge you at once!"

"I would no suggest that," Adam told it as h grabbed the index. Half of the data it contained was written into his memory banks. Cortana absorbed the rest.

This action only further angered Guilty Spark. "How dare you!" the monitor exclaimed.

"But you can't do anything about it." Adam told him.

"Enough!" John commanded impatiently. He had spent a long time in the underground chamber and he was too tired to deal with the eccentric AIs.

Samus turned towards Adam. "We need to stop the Flood. We can do that if we activate Halo."

"It won't work in the why that you're thinking of, Lady." He responded like a father might to an impatient child.

"What do you mean?"

"The Forerunner didn't design Halo to kill the Flood. They built it to kill their food. Anything that can sustain the Flood goes, and the galaxy is wiped clean of all sentient life." Cortana said as she leaned forwards with a grim face.

"That would explain the 'mass sterilization protocols' you mentioned earlier." Samus said as she turned towards the monitor. "Right?"

Guilty Spark bobbed in the air at Samus's question. "More or less." It said, taken off guard by their ignorance. Then it explained, "This installation has a limited range, but once the others join in, this galaxy will be devoid of all life that could sustain the Flood." It floated through the air, "But you already knew this." It sounded puzzled, as though what it had been told would happen wasn't. "I mean, how couldn't you?" It said as it rounded on them. "We followed outbreak containment procedure to the letter." Guilty Spark said defensively as Samus raised her arm cannon to it. "You were with me each step of the way as we managed the crisis."

"There's some movement-" Adam began and was cut off by Guilty Spark.

"Why would you hesitate to do what you've already done?"

"We need to go," Cortana insisted beyond Guilty Spark's ramblings, "_right now_."

As it spoke, the monitor flew around the control room, truly upset. "Last time you asked me if it were my choice would I do it? Having had considerable to time to ponder your query my answer has not changed. There is no choice. We must activate the ring." It sighed as it stopped right in front of them. John saw sentinels rise up into the room and arrange themselves above the walkway.

"Get us out, Lady." Adam ordered.

"If you are unwilling to help, I will simply find another. But I must have the index." The monitor said and flew in closer to them. They leaned backwards and reached for the AIs' chips. "Give your constructs to me, or I will be forced to take them from you."

John raised his plasma rifle. "That's not going to happen." He said simply.

"So be it." The monitor seemed to be disappointed. It ordered to the sentinels, "Save their heads. Dispose of the rest." It disappeared in a flash of golden light.

John and Samus leapt apart and started to fire at the sentinels, which had immediately fired at them after Guilty Spark had disappeared. Samus used several missiles coated in ice to freeze them and another to shatter them. John burned away their eyes with his plasma rifle. Samus rushed forwards and opened trigged the panel that opened the door. They ran through the open door, the Master Chief in the lead.

"Lady," He heard Adam say in his speakers. There was a pause as the AI stopped to think about something. It took him a second to realize that Adam had been speaking from within his armor. "Chief," Adam amended, "I think you took the wrong chip."

"No kidding," He replied as they ran around a corner, killing Pirates and Covenant as they went.

Inside Samus's helmet, she heard Cortana begin speaking, "We can't let the monitor activate Halo. We have to stop him. We have to destroy Halo."

"Really? Thanks for the info, Cortana. I was on it since the swamp. I hope they just got back okay."

"Hmm?" Cortana asked and a half second later said, "You've got to be kidding."

"What is it?"

"You and Chief switched our chips," She said sourly.

"Sorry for not being a computer," Samus replied, "Didn't have much time to check that out at the time. Don't have the chance to fix it now, either." She rolled as a sentinel appeared and fired at her. She leapt upwards, activating her plasma sword and swinging at the sentinel with her left arm. The attachment cut through the machine and it dropped to the ground.

The Master Chief hit a switch that opened a locked door. He heard Samus call out to him.

"Isn't it great to not have to wait ten minutes for some idiot to open a door for you?"

"Yes." He replied. He appreciated her dry humor; it was like what Wil sometimes did to keep everyone from tensing up on the battlefield and getting killed.

The corridor before them was empty and they ran through it to the door that led to the outside.

"So what do you mean you've been on it since the swamp, Samus?"

"The Flood made me want to blow the place sky high. Like the Chozo asked me to do in the first place. So when I sent Kelly, Linda and Wil back, I had the ship bring an order to them. They were to place the Oculi on the ship at intervals along the structure. I also had an order for a ship to bring the Oculus when I called for it so John and I could put that somewhere to trigger a chain reaction to blow it up."

"Interesting. That's a good plan."

"Adam helped me with it."

"Alright. Did you tell the Chief of your plan while you were down there?"

"Nope, and we've still got to call for that ship."

"How will you do that?"

"Still working on it."

"Great."

"Got a better idea?"

"In fact I do." She checked with Adam and made sure that John was on the same page. Then she activated Samus's speakers and said, "But first we need to distract the monitor to buy some time in case he and his sentinels figure out how to activate Halo without the index."

"Right." John said as he opened the door that led to the outside. Several aliens greeted them. Grateful that they weren't Flood, the two shot them down. "How do you propose that we do that?" He noticed that it was dark out and it was snowing heavier.

"In this area," Adam began, "are Halo's primary firing mechanisms. In particular there are three pulse generators that amplify Halo's signal to make it reach into deep space. If we damage or destroy those, Guilty Spark will have to fix them before he can do anything. Cortana and I will lead you to them, it will be up to you to do the rest of it."

"Sounds easy." Samus said. At that moment a marker appeared on her map. In John's HUD he saw a Nav. marker pointing to the nearest generator with a distance under it.

They ran down the pyramid, which involved going down long winding paths from one side to the other on a gentle slope. As they continued in their path they were greeted by many more of the Covenant and Space Pirates. They killed the aliens and eventually managed to get to the ground below. Waiting for them were several more Elites and Ice Troopers. Samus groaned at the sight and changed her arm cannon to its ice mode. Working together, they made short work of the aliens.

Samus fired a super missile into the cockpit of a Covenant wraith that had just appeared. They skirted the bombshell it fired at them and the missile landed in the small opening. The pilot was sent flying out as a corpse from its seat as the Wraith was caught up in the explosion of the missile. There were two banshees resting in the snow. They took one each and flew up into the air. There was a platform sticking out of the canyon wall. They flew up, one on each side, and then fired at the enemies on the platform with the secondary ammo of the Banshee. They landed on the platform and disembarked, cleaning up the straggling aliens.

"I wonder why they're up here?"

"They probably think that the generators are holy relics." Cortana said.

With that they continued through the door in the canyon wall. They walked through a hallway and came to a large room. In the middle of the room was a large blue beam. John's helmet had to quickly polarize to keep him from being blinded.

"That's the pulse generator. We need to interrupted it's signal" Cortana said.

"I've recalibrated your shields to deliver an EMP blast, Chief." Adam said.

"That's good."

"Unfortunately, you need to walk into the beam to trigger it. And it will also completely drain your shields"

"What? Whose side are you on?" John said defensively.

"Yours. I'd ask Samus to do it, she's been through worse, but it would completely drain her shields. And hers don't recharge. Yours do."

"Oh, I get it." He sighed and readied himself.

"I'll watch your back, Chief." Samus said raising her arm cannon.

He nodded and walked into the beam. He felt sunburn forming on his skin and even though he had shut his eyes, the bright light still managed to burn his retina. He backed out when he heard the sound of his shields giving way.

"Get behind me, Chief." Samus commanded as the sound of gunfire erupted. Partially blinded, he relied on his hearing to guide him to Samus to take cover. Even though his shields were charging quickly, he couldn't see anything. A few moments later, his vision had returned to normal. He then ducked out from behind Samus and helped her to destroy the sentinels.

"Good, the generator is shut down. I'll mark the location of the second so that you can get started." Adam said.

"Right." John said. He hoped that they could get through this quickly.

"It's in the adjacent canyon." Cortana added. They left the area and got back out onto the platform. They got into the banshees and flew back towards the bridge that they had originally gotten the Banshee to get to the top of the pyramid to enter the control room. They strafed the enemies that were on the bridge and landed on the snowy covering. They ran through the door where they first exited to get on the bridge when they were heading to the control room. They retraced their steps through the corridors and rooms in the mountainside to get back to the second canyon.

In one of the rooms they stopped when they saw that the Covenant were struggling against the Flood and a few Metroids. The two hung back to wait for the victor to be declared. Although they made swift work of the Flood, they were destroyed by the Metroids. At that point, Samus and John leapt out from the cover that they had taken and killed the Metroids. Then they worked their way through the room, which was riddled with aliens, such as Grunts, Jackals, Elites, and Pirates. When everything was dead, including the Flood that ran into the room, they ran out, tracing the path they had originally taken to get to the Control Room.

They got to the twin bridges that they had crossed earlier. There were Covenant and Space Pirates on the bridge that they were on fighting Flood and Metroids on the other bridge. The Combat forms jumped the gap and starting fighting the Covenant and Pirates directly. The Metroids came over and helped the Combat forms, although sometimes they latched onto Flood.

The Master Chief and Samus had taken cover and watched the battle. Once the numbers had been whittled down, they joined the fray and killed off all the survivors. Samus looked at John and pointed towards the widest part of the bridge. They walked over to it and Samus leapt off the bridge. In the air she curled up and then with blasts of energy, which viciously attacked the Flood that jumped at her, she managed to make it to the other bridge. With the Master Chief's help, she then cleared out the second bridge.

"Get on the ledge," she told him. He checked the bridge that he was on to make sure that it was devoid of alien activity and got on the ledge of the bridge. He saw Samus swing her left arm towards him, and her grapple beam activated, it wrapped around him and she whipped him across the gap. He flew forwards and just as he was about to crash into Samus, she jumped off the ledge that she had been standing on and swung her arm back to negate his forward acceleration. He came to a jarring stop two feet above the surface of the bridge and fell down as his horizontal motion was suddenly stopped. He looked at Samus.

"Good idea."

"Yeah, huh?"


	45. Chapter 23 Of Betrayals 2

Then without another word said they ran to the door on the second bridge that would allow them to continue to trace their steps backwards. They went through rooms filled with Flood, Metroid, Covenant, and Pirates alike. After killing each singular enemy so that they wouldn't have to worry about being attacked from behind, they went into the next area, ignoring the arrows on the ground that were pointing in the opposite direction that they were going in.

They took a lift down, proceeded forwards, and found themselves back in the open. It was a large snowy plain. While they had been on the bridges above the ground, they hadn't noticed the battle raging on below them but now they saw the vast amounts aliens that were fighting amongst each other. After waiting for several minutes, Samus and John ran into the battle and took down everything. There were Wraith tanks waiting for them, blocking the path they needed to use to continue to the second pulse generator. After Samus took them out with two Super missiles, they were able to continue forwards. The area they entered was the first area they had gotten two with alien activity when they had first come to the snowy canyons and where Samus had gotten her sword upgrade. After running for some time, they came to a group of rocks with Covenant Elites. The six-foot tall alien warriors yelled and took cover behind the rocks while firing that the two. It took a minute, but soon they were killed. There were two Banshees nearby, and taking the hint, they piled in and flew both of the Banshees up towards where John's NAVpoint directed them. Coming up from both sides, they destroyed the Covenant and Pirates on the platform.

They landed after it was clear and ran through the door that would lead them to the second generator. In the room were sentinels fighting Flood and Metroid. The sentinels lost the battle and Samus and John were left to clean up the remaining Flood and Metroids. After those were dead, John walked into the second pulse generator and immediately took cover behind Samus while his eyes and shields recovered. When he ducked out of Samus's meager cover, he noticed that the area was filled with Flood and Metroids. He helped her to take care of them, while dodged the lunging Metroids. After the coast was clear they ran back to the platforms and took the Banshees back down to the ground. Adam and Cortana directed them towards the tunnels that they had ignored before. Not wanting to loose speed, they took the Banshees into the tunnel and strafed everything with the machine's plasma blasts.

When the Banshees had taken a lot of damage, they got out, let the crafts fall to the ground and exploded on groupings of Flood. Samus had to get out first as she had a harder time piloting the Banshee with one available arm. Then they ran through the underground area, careening down the rocky slope. When they got to a locked door and tried to open it, the door was broken and only opened wide enough for one of them to slip through at a time. Samus went first, followed closely by the Master Chief. They entered a large room with a bridge to the right. They ran through the area, firing at any aliens they came across and killing them for the most part. However, they had to leave a few alive for the sake of speed. As they ran along the bridge, Grunts fired at them with a stationary gun on the far side of the room to their left. Samus hit it with a long-range missile and they were able to continue to the opposite side of the bridge with little opposition and when they got to a locked door block their path, the Master Chief triggered it open. They ran through the door at the same time once it had opened just wide enough for the both of them to pass through at the same time.

They continued through the underground area, the hallways that they ran through were large enough for one of the drop ships of the Migration. There were several locked doors that needed to be opened, but after a few minutes of running with little resistance, they got back outside. It was a large area with another battle between the Pirates, Covenant, Metroid, and Flood. There were some Flood infected Metroids that attacked everything that wasn't Flood, but otherwise the Metroid had no alliances that John and Samus could see. After lying in wait for several minutes, they helped themselves to the remaining survivors of the battle. They ran through the area, according to the two AIs the generator was in the area, but they needed to find a Banshee or two first. At firs the distance under the NAVpoint in John's helmet dropped, but then it spiked as they ran to the other side of the canyon. They found a grouping of three Banshees. They took two, destroyed the third, so that none of the aliens could follow them, and flew up towards the generator. Halfway in their trip across the canyon, there was a large roar that cut through the air like a crack of thunder.

Samus spoke to the Master Chief through a comm. line. "Chief, deactivate that last generator. I'll distract Ridley so you can get to it safely. I'll meet you up there."

He glanced backwards at the area where the roar had come from and saw the large metallic dragon flying at them.

"All right. Be careful." He warned and continued flying, taking evasive actions to avoid Ridley's blasts.

Samus turned her Banshee around and fired at Ridley. The plasma blasts did nothing to his armor, but it allowed him to see which one of the crafts contained Samus. He left the Master Chief alone and fired at Samus. She flew in a random pattern towards the ground after hitting Ridley with one of the secondary blasts of the Banshee.

"Samus, I'm on the platform," John told her, "You can come up."

"No, it's alright. I'll finish the guy off. You'll be able to take care of yourself with Adam's help."

"You sure?"

"Yes." Samus jumped out of the Banshee as it came within a meter of the ground. The craft exploded as Ridley hit the vehicle with an energy beam. She rolled to the side, turned on her scanner and cursed once it had finished its analysis.

On the platform, which he had made sure was cleared before landing, John turned off his comm. device and sighed. He went the door after giving once last glance towards the area where Samus was fighting Ridley.

"Hey, Adam, I've got a question about Samus."

"Alright."

"What is she?"

"A Space Hunter, the most elite of the Government's forces. She's a strong but caring warrior."

"That's not what I meant," he replied dryly as he continued through the hallway.

"I'm not sure what you were asking then."

"Let's try this, then. I hate the Covenant, but I don't act as rashly as she does when it comes to Space Pirates or that Ridley. Do you know why that is?"

"Well, if you're so interested in her…" Adam said in a secretive tone.

The Master Chief stopped when he was about to enter the pulse generator. He was interested in Samus's past in an objective way, but Adam seemed to be suggesting something else. He took down the sentinels that were guarding the generator as he thought about that.

"Yes, I am. So will you answer my question," He said firmly. The AI started to laugh at his response. "What is it?"

"I don't think you understand what I meant, Chief. The Lady has entrusted a lot of information about herself to me, and when I'm asked about her I always say that to get people to stop asking, most people get flustered when I say that and stop asking."

"I'm interested in her so I can know how to rely on her in battle. How else would I be?" He asked, both puzzled and annoyed at Adam's behaviors. He turned away from the generator, so he could finish this conversation without being blinded.

"Nothing, Chief," Adam responded as he continued to laugh. "I think I'll answer your question, though." He said sobering up.

"The Lady was the sole survivor of a Space Pirate attack on a colony world K-2L, founded for an energy producing crystal, she watched as Ridley killed her mother right before. Ever since then she's had a deep hatred of the Space Pirates."

"But she said that the Chozo planet was her home world," John responded, highly confused.

"The Chozo found her after the Pirate attack and took her back with them. They raised her from the age of three."

"Oh. So what race is she?"

"Human." Adam said simply.

"But," He thought back to when they had been trying to get the index. What she had done to the Metroid, to him, and how she had looked. He also remembered her eyes sometimes flashing from blue to green. "How could she have-?" he was at a loss for words.

"She was infused with Chozo DNA so that she could survive on the world that they brought her too. It wasn't hospitable for humans. Not many people know this, so you'll have to keep it a secret." John nodded and turned back to the pulse generator. Something about what she had done to the Metroids still bothered him, but he remained quiet and walked into the pulse generator.

Nothing came to attack him when he destroyed its signal, so he was able to walk slowly back to the door to get on the Banshee and help Samus with Ridley while allowing his eyes to regain their vision. When he got back outside and was in the Banshee, he heard a loud crashing sound, but otherwise it was purely silent. He could hear a pin drop in a sandstorm, but he heard nothing aside from the whine of the Banshee's engines.

As he flew around a bend in the canyon, which was where the battle had been, he saw a large crater in the ground and a small black figure lying on the ground on the edge of the crater. He pushed the Banshee towards maximum acceleration and flew down towards the crater.

Moments earlier, a severely weakened Samus had been held in Ridley's grip. They were above the top of the canyons. She was barely able to bring her arm cannon up and charge her beam with black and white energy. Ridley had brought his head down to look at Samus with an eye. He had laughed and then opened his mouth, charging an energy beam to hit her with. She knew that she would be unable to handle the blast, so she fired the Annihilator beam's full charge and infused it with several missiles. The sonic wave that had hit the back of Ridley's throat was unable to kill him, but it shorted most of his electrical circuits in his mechanized body. This caused him to fall suddenly to the ground. He was also forced to let go of Samus, his body had gone limp and he was paralyzed from Samus's attack.

She pushed her self off weakly from his hand and fell to the ground. She landed in the snow back first. The only thing that allowed her to survive the fall was the three feet of snow. Ridley fell, and with several tons of weight, he broke through the ground and fell through to the bowels of the ring. She lay limp on the ground, head spinning and blood spilling from her mouth. Her shields were mostly intact; they had taken very little damage in the fight, though from everything from before, she was down to three tanks. The attacks Ridley had hit her with were mostly energy based and they had ripped through her shields without damaging them. It had damaged her body and caused her massive trauma. She heard the sound of a Banshee flying in and it landed on the ground nearby. She heard the pilot get out and assumed from the lack of fire that it was the Master Chief.

John walked over the Samus and knelt down next to her. "Samus? Are you alright?"

"Been better," she coughed out.

"Ridley's attacks were designed specifically as a bioweapon against her. They went straight through her shields," Cortana said.

"Great," John said. He bent down and leaned her against his knee. Flood forms were crawling out of the crater that Ridley had made. He fired at them with his plasma rifle. "Samus this is no time to take a nap."

"Right," Samus said. She lifted up her arm cannon and fired at the Infection forms with her plasma beam.

"We're too far to call for the drop ship," Adam said as they fought off the Flood.

"You have a better idea?" John asked.

"Yes," Cortana said. "While we were in the control room, we learned how to tap into Halo's teleportation grid, it's how the monitor gets around. Unfortunately, each jump requires a rather consequential expenditure of energy."

"I'm not gonna like this, am I?" Samus asked weakly.

"We're pretty sure that we can pull the energy from your suits without permanently damaging them. And we can get you near the _Migration_ to get the drop ship so you can go to the point to plant the Oculus." Adam told them.

"All right."

John felt his body be surrounded by the golden circles and he went into the half existence while in the Halo transportation grid.


	46. Chapter 24 Of Deaths

If you're a writer, I have this serious question for you. Have you ever been writing a multi-chapter story and when you get to a specific chapter you just don't want to finish the chapter, and you wish that it would finish itself so that you could get to the other chapters? Yeah, that happened for this one. It's been hanging around for weeks, waiting for me to finish it. Though I did manage to finish it in time for update Friday.

* * *

**1342 Hours, September 2, 2552 (Military Calendar)**

**3 kilometers from the **_**Migration**_** Blue Team Log**

He came back into existence several seconds later. He heard something falling towards him and he immediately began to move, however he was too late. Whatever it was struck him on his chest and he was forced onto his back on the ground. He pushed himself up and saw that it had been Samus. She was lying perpendicular to his body across his chest.

"Oh," Samus heard Cortana say in her helmet. "The coordinate data needs to be-"

"Whatever it needs to be, keep that in mind next time, if we ever have to do that again." Samus snapped as she forced herself into a standing position.

"Right," Cortana said sheepishly. "Sorry."

The Chozo warrior stood in a slouched position and looked at the Master Chief, who was already standing. He looked around, they were in the forests that the _Migration _had landed in to hide from any of the alien forces that might have been searching for the remains of the ship.

"How far are we from the ship?" John inquired the AIs.

"We are a little more than 3 kilometers from the _Migration_." Cortana responded instantly.

"When we're one click away, we can call for a drop ship," Adam added. "Would you like any medical supplies to be added to the cargo?"

"A standard first aid kit," Samus said. "Injections only, unless he wants something else," she added, thumbing at the Chief.

"I'm fine," the Master Chief said.

"I'll have a quick splint kit added for your broken ribs," Adam said to him. "Would you like anything else?"

"No."

"And something for the broken vessel in your arm," Adam added quickly. Samus chuckled to herself. Having direct access to the Spartan's suit, he could easily check the bio on the Master Chief and cut through his stubborn wall of never letting on that he was bothered by something. Adam had always been able to do this to her while she was in the military so she had learned to quit being stubborn about her injuries to him. She could tell that John was angered by Adam's ability to do so, even without her Chozo abilities.

Her radar was alive with targets, but she assumed that it was because of the dense trees in the area. She looked up at the tree line and was annoyed by the fact that she couldn't see anything above her. She looked at the Chief and he waved at her to walk forwards. She followed him closely and watched as he cleared the brush they were walking through. She shook her head to try and rid herself of the exhausted and nauseous feeling she had had since the battle with Ridley.

"What do you plan to do with a first aid kit?" Cortana asked through her helmet speakers. "They have nothing that can take care of the injuries that you incurred in the battle with Ridley."

Samus declined a response to Cortana. The AI had been asking her a lot of questions about her actions, including the refusing to run from the fight with Ridley. She had never answered a question of the AI's and was not planning to start now. She wished that she had Adam with her instead of Cortana. The other AI never asked questions, mostly because he tended to know the answers already. Adam knew a lot about her, who she was, and what her past was. He never needed to ask questions about what she was doing. She preferred that to the overly curious and questioning AI that was Cortana. She had always hated people like that.

As they pressed through the forest, Samus found it harder and harder to keep her eyes open and legs moving. However, she knew that the Master Chief was probably just as tired, so she made no motions to complain or make a show of her condition, though even if she was by herself she would have soldiered on regardless of how she was. She found it harder to continue because she had someone else to rely on to notice things.

The Master Chief was pushing through the brush in front of Samus. Adam had taken to silence after marking the direction that they needed to go on the Chief's HUD. He had ignored his motion tracker as it was painting the motion of all the trees onto the lower screen so it was a red circle with two yellow dots on it. He was keeping an eye out for any Flood that had spread to the surface and were running around the area. He wasn't sure if they were there, but there had never been any harm in being precautious.

Halfway back to the _Migration_ his caution paid off. When a combat form leapt out of the forest at him, he already had his gun up and was able to fire at it immediately. Samus's reaction was sluggish but she took down the infection forms that were flooding out of the forest at them. He noted this and decided that for the moment he would be unable to rely on her in battle. His eyes stung like there were needles in them, but other than that he was fairly reasonable in his reactions.

As they continued onwards they were greeted with more Flood and Metroids. Their speed was reduced dramatically as they pushed through the brush to get back to the _Migration_ while fighting the parasitic aliens off. After another half hour of fighting, they heard the whine of engines. They looked up and saw a drop ship flying towards them. It stopped several meters above them. John and Samus killed the Flood in the area and Samus ordered it to fly in closer to the ground so that they could get in. The bottom hatch opened when it was a meter above the ground, the blast from its engines bent the trees and the brush away from it. John had Samus get in first and then he dusted off the ground.

Samus was moving towards the pilot's seat. "Samus," he called out. She turned to look at him. "Adam says that he'll help me with the controls right now. You should take care of whatever medical procedures you need to do."

She nodded her head and looked around. First she spotted a portable recharge station on one side of the troop bay. She activated it and then walked into it. Her shields were brought from half a tank to twenty. Her missile count went from twelve to two hundred fifty-five. Although she still had her physical maladies, her suit would be able to take a lot more punishment before giving out. After the recharge station had finished saturating her suit with energy, she stepped out and looked around for the Oculus. She spotted the half a meter wide black sphere nestled safely in some plastic casings, ensuring that it wouldn't roll around on the floor. She double checked it to make sure that it was secure. Then she looked down at the chip that held Cortana in her left forearm. She collapsed her arm cannon and tried to pull the chip out of her left forearm. She found that it was stuck in place.

She sighed and said, "Cortana, this is likely to be unpleasant for you."

Before the AI could respond, Samus pressed the code sequence to collapse her suit into the implant in her left wrist. She pulled off the glove on her wrist and placed the garment on one of the many chairs in the drop ship. Without her suit to hold her up, she found walking harder and had to use the chairs to support herself to get to the blue and gray chest a few meters from where she was. When Samus reached the kit she opened it. The box had neat and tightly packed rows of vials with different colors. Safely stowed in the rows were a needle and a sterilization field generator.

Samus pulled out the generator, which was a small disk, only three centimeters in diameter and less then a millimeter in thickness. She briefly activated the generator over her bared wrist and then put it back. She plucked the needle from where it had been nestled along with four of the vials. Samus then felt around her wrist, with her palm facing the air, using the back end of the needle. Having found what she was looking for, Samus flipped the needle around in her fingers and she put it into her skin. The tip of the needle slid into a hole in the implant around her wrist. She injected a portion of three of the four vials she had pulled out earlier and completely drained the other, and then pulled out the needle. She flicked a touch switch on the needle and the end fired a brief laser that made the brief hole that had been bleeding stop with a small red dot of scar tissue. She then put the needle back in its place, along with the vials, and put the kit back on the floor. Then Samus thumbed a hidden button in the implant and she felt the medicine she had injected be put into her bloodstream. Satisfied, Samus pressed a button and brought her suit back around her body. As the medicine worked, Samus felt more strength come back to her and she found it less trying to stay conscious. She walked over to John.

"Get Adam's advice about how to take care of your injuries and then take a breather. Let me fly this thing." The Master Chief looked up at her and then nodded. He got out of the seat and walked into the back. She sat down and took over the controls, having to quickly reconfigure them for a lack of use of her right arm.

The Chief walked to the back and found a medical kit that Adam had pointed out to him. He opened it and found some bags containing a variety of differently colored liquids; each bag had a wide and sealed hole. There was a rod with a button on it as well. The rod tapered from about the thickness of his wrist on one end to the width of his smallest finger on the other. The widest end was hollow and had sharp edges. Adam instructed him to pull out one of the bags with a neon green shade and place the hole around the end of the rod. When he did so, the sharp edges broke the seal and the liquid drained. He found one of the ports that his armor had in the chest area for quick medical procedures. They were small bits of the armor that was removable to get to the skin underneath. He unsealed one of the ports around his right abdomen and then picked up the rod. He pressed the button and a small needle shot out of the thinnest part of the device. He pressed the needle into his flesh, through the jumpsuit the Chozo had given him to wear under the armor, and activated one of the touch switches on the side of the rod, just above the button. He felt something cold fill his chest cavity, there was an electrical buzz and he felt the broken ribs, which had been puncturing some of his organs be moved to their regular positions and be held in place. He pulled off the empty bag and plucked out another bag, this time filled with a blue liquid. After that bag was drained, he pulled out the needle and activated another touch switch, and it shot a brief laser that closed up the small hole made by the needle. He put the rod and the bags back into the box and replaced the covering of the port in his armor.

When that was finished Adam activated John's external helmet speakers and spoke, "Now that that's taken care of, I have some bad news."


	47. Chapter 24 Of Deaths 2

"Great," Samus said sarcastically.

"Out of all the teams that were sent out to plant the Oculi, only one person returned from four of the teams, we are still waiting on news from the other two teams. Combat forms or Metroid either killed the others or the Flood infected the MIA on the other four reporting teams."

John frowned, that meant that out of the seventeen Spartans remaining that had gone out, only four had returned so far. He waited to hear the names of those who remained.

"The survivors are: 039 Isaac, 043 William, 093 Grace, and 104 Frederic. The two teams that we are still waiting on are Green and Red Teams. The members on those teams are G-058 Linda, G-067 Ahmed, G-121 Juliana, R-052 Edmund, and R-087 Kelly. Also, Captain Keyes took a ship and some Marines to the same area that you are heading. The shipboard AI was unable to communicate to them the rest of the plan and the fact that you two would be coming for the Oculus. They took an Oculi, thinking that you would be relying on them to finish the mission."

"Very well." He tried to remain as objective as possible about the situation. However, he couldn't resist the thought that if things were to follow the pattern of the other teams and only one were to return from each team, that he would prefer them to be Kelly and Linda. The feeling was quickly purged and he chastised the desire to have one of his teammates and family members survive beyond the rest. As for the Marines, he now understood why a few of the Combat forms had appeared to have once been Human. He didn't hold the highest hopes for their survival.

A thought occurred to him and he looked at Samus. "Samus, you said a while ago that the Oculus was a dangerous tool developed by the Chozo, and it has a large blast radius, right?"

"Yeah."

"So what is your plan again?"

"We go in, plant the bomb, set it on a timer, and get the hell off this ring world. By that time, I'm hoping that others have completed their missions and were able to plant the smaller Oculi. Setting off the Oculus will trigger two Oculi upspin and downspin of the epicenter, they will trigger two more and those two will trigger two more. Seven explosions of that magnitude should, in theory, create enough weak points in the structure of the ring to tear it apart, break it's biosphere, and kill the Flood. Adam and I were planning on doing this before leaving the system."

"Right." He said. "Because it was the Chozo's request?"

"Yeah." Samus said dismissively and turned her attention back to the controls. He recognized the motion for what it was, a silent gesture for him to shut up and stop talking. John was very good at never talking, and so he did what came naturally to him for the rest of the flight. When they were a click away from their target area, Samus flipped several switches and the ship stopped in its flight. It lowered itself to the ground and the hatch opened up. John stood and looked at a distance in a NAVpoint that Adam had placed on his HUD.

"Samus, we're a kilometer from the drop site." He said.

"Yeah, but, according to Cortana, we should place it underground. And according to her, the nearest inlet to an underground facility in the area is around here."

"Great." He commented as he dropped out of the drop ship. Samus followed him and then the ship began to fly around in the sky in an automated pattern, so it would avoid landing and there would be no risk of Flood hitching a ride on the ship. She had told Cortana to get the _Migration_ airborne for the same reason.

They cleared the area that they were in and continued in the path that they were faced with. Adam changed the NAVpoint in the Chief's HUD, directing them to the nearest inlet. It was several minutes' walk away. Once they got there, they saw a drop ship had landed on the ground. Samus and the Chief inspected it briefly, destroying the Flood that were climbing on the hull and in the ship. After a bio scan cleared it of parasitic life, Samus had it fly back to the _Migration_ with orders for a quarantine field to block off the bridge, the medical bay, a few quarters, a bay, and all of the linking pathways for all the people currently on the _Migration_ who were without suits to be safe from any Flood that might have climbed aboard the ship. All other bays were to be locked down and the shipboard AI was to conduct a sweep of any and all pathways in the ship that were more then a foot in diameter for parasitic life.

They founded the inlet, a building that towered several floors above the ground. It sent out a pulse beam from what seemed to be a tuning fork set atop it to the other side of the ring. The energy that the beam was sent from in between the tines of the fork was blinding and they didn't find the desire to stare at it for more then a half-second. They had to climb up a ramp that led to the roof of the building in order to find the entrance to the lift that would bring them into the depths of the ring. When they were on the lift, Samus and John looked at each other and then he pressed the switch that activated the lift.

As it slid down Samus looked around anxiously.

"Relax," she told herself, "It's alright. It's not at all like the BSL Space Station." Even though she meant to think more about the mission ahead and the time they might need to escape and not linger about her latest mission, she couldn't help the lingering thought that this was worse. She felt the Master Chief's eyes on her and decided to stand still and look at the ground, waiting for there to be a sign that the lift was going to come to a stop soon.

John shifted his left arm, which was holding the Oculus, balanced against his hip. The weight was barely noticeable with the strength boost his armor gave him, but it was very smooth and round. Holding it was difficult, even with the friction boosters on his hand maxed out. The black surface was silky smooth and it reflected very little light. He wondered how hard it would be to find the Oculus if he dropped it during a battle down here and decided that he didn't want to find out.

When the lift stopped they were immediately greeted by the screaming of Metroids. They broke into a run and turned around. They saw the Flood Metroid combinations that had been absent since the time they were looking for the Index and Samus killed them with her plasma beam, covering the Chief as the Oculus reduced his battle capacity.

They took down the Flood Metroids and then found themselves against a swarm of Combat forms. Without much hesitation, those were killed as well. The two worked their way through the hallways and passages, following Adam and Cortana's sparse directions to get them back onto the right path.

After nearly an hour in the underground hell, working through the passageways, fighting off Flood and Metroids Cortana finally announced, "The explosion point is right in the center of the room just ahead of you."

"Great," Samus replied, grateful to be nearing the end of her experience on the ring world.

They checked the door, and saw that there was a security lock on the other side. Samus fisted her left hand, and the plasma sword appeared. She ran a hand through the door and cut away the entire door with a careful sawing motion. When the door was cut away, she was kneeling on the floor. She turned off the sword augmentation and raised her arm cannon. The Chief used the butt of his plasma rifle to knock the door forwards. In the room was a surprised Marine. He had black skin and dark eyes. His face was scratched and he appeared to be injured, but there didn't seem to be a problem with him.

"Well, I'll be." The Marine said in a gruff voice. "I wasn't expecting you two to come to rescue me."

"We're not here to rescue you, Marine." The Chief said as he walked forward into the room. It was strangely devoid of life. Samus got up and activated her scanners. John watched as her scanner examined the Marine.

"Staff Sergeant Avery Johnson," Samus announced as she removed her left hand from her helmet. She waved the Master Chief forward, so he could put the Oculus in place. She kept her arm cannon down, but was ready to raise it at an instant's notice.

"Yes, sir?" Johnson said.

"Captain Keyes took you and a group of Marines to this spot with an Oculi, as he surmised that he would need to take care of an apparent flaw in our plan."

"Well, he didn't say that much, sir, but we did come here with the Captain and one of those black orbs."

"Right. Well, where are they, Sergeant?" Samus said as she moved over to the Oculus. She collapsed her arm cannon and subtlety gestured to the Chief to keep an eye on the Marine. Samus felt around the object, it's surface was smooth, so smooth that it was able to hide the keys in the surface, but she found them and began to twist her hands around the object to activate the device.

"When we came down here, sir, we were ambushed by those parasitic horror show freaks. They attacked everyone. Knocked me out pretty damn fast. When I came to, I was here by myself. No marines, no captain, no aliens."

The Chief spoke, tightening his hold on his gun, "Why weren't you infected?"

"Infected? I dunno, sir. Maybe they didn't like me too much."

"That doesn't make sense," Cortana objected, "from what I gathered on them, they don't have tastes, and they certainly leave potential victims alone."

"But I feel like normal and I've been here for hours." Johnson objected.

"There's no way to prove that."

"Cortana, check my scan logs." Samus said mildly as she continued to punch in a complex code, "There are signs of Flood DNA in his spinal system, but it seems to be dead. He doesn't appear to be a host."

"Thank you," Johnson said. "I told you I'm fine."

"But," Samus said sharply, "First chance that I get, you're getting a full medical scan. And I have another couple of questions."

"Yes, sir? I'll answer them as best I can."

"Where's the black orb you came with?"

"Oh, that, sir? It's over there in a corner." Samus looked up for a moment from the Oculus. The Sergeant started at her look and went over to the corner and picked it up. He came back with it. "I though it would be best to keep it out of sight so no one took it after I woke up."

"Good thinking. But why did you lock yourself in instead of going back to the ship and returning to the _Migration_?"

"I never got the chance to learn how to fly the ship, sir. And the aliens came in through the door. For my safety I decided to lock myself in. When you cut open the door, I though that the Covenant had come down here."

"No, my suit was just augmented with Covenant technology." Samus said as she removed her hands from the Oculus. "Come on, I set it on a fifty minute timer."

"Need I remind you, Samus, that it took us an hour and ten minutes to get down here." Adam pointed out form the Chief's speakers.

"Backtracking isn't nearly as hard as going through somewhere the first time."

"I like your style, sir." Johnson noted as they ran through the cut open door.


	48. Chapter 25 Of Timed Escapes

Hey guys, sorry if there's bad grammar and spelling and so on. But I'm in college now, so before I get _slammed _with work, I want to finish this. I'll go over it again in winter break, but until then, please bear with. The story and plot should be just as good, along with some zippy one-liners. I hope.

* * *

**1607 Hours, September 2, 2552 (Military Calendar)**

**30 kilometers from the **_**Migration**_** Blue Team Log**

They ran through the building. They spent very little time in the area killing the Flood and Metroids that came after them. Instead, they dazed the aliens with bursts of quick fire to keep up a strong pace. By the time that they reached the lift that they had originally taken to get down, the count down timer in Samus's HUD said **28:01**. She grinned; they had cut the time she had expected them to take down by more then half. However, she could see that the effort had completely winded Johnson. Fortunately, the drop ship was easily called to their position and it would take them very little time to get on it. They got on the lift and then walked outside. The area was eerily devoid of alien activity. Samus had Cortana call for the drop ship.

As the drop ship came into view, there was a distorted dragon's cry. Samus looked towards the source and saw Ridley flying towards them. She checked the timer; it had been only a minute since they had reached the lift.

"Chief, Johnson, get on board the drop ship. I'll take care of this. She walked towards the ledge of the building to jump to the ground. She stopped as John grabbed her arm.

"We don't have time for this." He told her.

"Odds are he'll escape the blast," Samus responded. She wrested her arm free and jumped down. She looked back at the dragon and strained her eyes. Ridley's shadow was deformed. She wearily activated her scanner and waited for him to get into the hundred-meter range of the device. It took a while for the scan to work, but once it did, she streamed several Chozo curses nearly intelligibly.

On the building the Chief looked over at Samus and found himself irritated at her stubborn resolve to fight Ridley. He turned towards Johnson. "Alright, get on the ship." He pointed towards the vehicle, which was hovering ten meters above the ground with a gravity beam. The marine turned and moved towards the ship. John began to follow when Adam spoke to him hurriedly.

"Chief, there's a slight problem."

"What is it?" He asked.

"Ridley's been infected by the Flood. And Samus is in no condition to fight an enhanced Ridley. Her body is still weakened by that last fight, and his weapon systems are still intact. All the medication she put in does is allow her to ignore the pain."

"What do you want me to do?"

"Help her."

The Chief stopped and turned back towards Samus, who was already in the fight with Ridley.

"Sir, is something the matter?" Johnson asked.

"Nothing." He reached to the back of his head and tried to remove the chip that Adam was in. He struggled for a moment and found that it was stuck in the slot. He quickly had Adam separate the chip into half and managed to pull the top half out of the slot. He handed it to Johnson. "Put that into the AI slot aboard the ship. It will help you fly out of danger."

"Got it, sir." Johnson looked at Ridley, who was trailing Samus with an energy blast. "Oh, and, sir?" He took the chip segment that the Chief was handing him. "Good luck."

The Chief nodded and then saw Johnson pull the rocket launcher of his back. John took it, along with the ammunition and the plasma pistol that the marine offered. "Thanks."

"No problem, sir."

The Chief made sure that Johnson made it to the drop ship with the Oculi safely and turned. He put the launcher on his back and jumped down to the fight with Samus.

**26:34**

Samus crouched to the ground to avoid a direct hit from one of Ridley's missiles. She rolled, got to her feet and ran forwards. Ridley shrieked. She turned and looked over at the dragon and stopped running for a moment as she watched the dregs of an explosive blast fall from the dragon, the mottling green hide that had squeezed through Ridley's armor systems was bleeding the mucus like blood of the Flood.

She turned and saw the Chief. He had a rocket launcher balanced over his shoulder. She grinned at his decision to help; she was going to need it. Samus turned back towards Ridley and fired a missile at him. The dragon dodged the attack and refocused its efforts on the Chief. He got to his feet and ran forwards, skirting the exploding dirt from the blast.

Samus charged up her arm cannon and fired a round, infused with missiles, at Ridley. It hit the dragon, but the only effect it apparently had was to irritate the infected dragon and make it focus on her. She jumped to the side and rolled just in time to avoid a blast of energy. The dragon flew into the air, hiding itself in front of the sun. Neither warrior could look up at the dragon to predict where its next move might be. They both ran around in random patterns to try and avoid any attacks that Ridley might unleash.

Samus was surprised to see an energy blast hit the ground right in front of her. She tried to turn to her right, but her forward acceleration carried her forward into the blast. She screamed in pain, not very loud, a faint yelp of the excruciating pain that she was in, and ran through the blast.

The Chief looked at Samus, traced the energy beam that was following the Chozo warrior, and fired the remaining round in the rocket at what he figured as the source. The beam disappeared as he heard the sound of an explosion. He swiftly tore open a pouch with ammunition in it and reloaded the launcher. He double-checked to make sure that the launcher was set in the second upgraded mode of that the Chozo had given it, and ran forwards to avoid any retaliation from Ridley.

The ground exploded behind him as Ridley fired a concentrated orb of energy to where the Chief had been. His shields flared as a rock that had been sent flying from the blast hit him in the back. He fell to the ground and rolled to his side to avoid another attack. He jumped up and began running once more.

Ridley flew down and was instantly greeted with one of Samus's super missiles. It hit the creature and it roared at her. Samus crouched to avoid an attack and fired a partially charged blast of he annihilator beam at Ridley. The partially charged attack and two rockets hit it with consecutively. Ridley roared and turned to face the Chief.

He began to run as he loaded more rockets into the launcher. A trail of fire traced his footsteps. He watched as Samus ran away from the fight, the coloration of her arm cannon was red. He wondered what she was up to and decided that he should keep Ridley distracted from whatever she was planning to do.

He put the launcher onto his back and pulled out his plasma pistol. He checked it from ice to fire and began to shoot at Ridley. The blasts were relatively slow, so the dragon had no troubles in dodging the blast. The dragon roared and began to charge an energy beam. The Master Chief moved to avoid being struck by it. Suddenly, Ridley shrieked as pain lanced through it.

He stopped running and looked to see what had happened. Samus had gathered enough speed so that with her speed booster, she was able to reach the height that the Flood infected dragon was at. She was precariously perched on Ridley's shoulders. Spewing from her arm cannon were flames. He thought back, she had used that flamethrower before, though its range was very short. He also remembered that she had said something to him once about Flood being weak against fire.

After a full minute of constant fire, the might dragon fell.

Samus jumped to the ground and checked her arm cannon. She stood up and looked at the Chief. They stood still for a moment in time.

"Behind you!" She shouted suddenly.

He darted to his side at her warning, not bothering to look for what was coming in from behind him. Something blue splattered against his right side. He brought up his plasma rifle as he pivoted on his left heel. There was a large pool of plasma that was bubbling and frothing violently. It stopped. Curiosity begged him to examine it closer, but instead he continued to back away from it slowly. He bumped against something and turned around, rifle raised.

He found himself cursing at what he saw. A barrier of energy, gathered in certain points, making it look as though it were formed out of hexagons. He rapped his fist against the barrier and it glimmered, but otherwise remained solid. He looked around and saw that the barrier had formed a dome, the center of which was the pool of Phazon.

He thought that Samus was trying to speak, but the sound was muffled, as though by thirty feet of water. He was barely able to make out a few words, "…careful…Phazon…red…defenseless…"

"Adam, do have any idea what she's trying to say?" He asked.

"I'm afraid that I don't. Nor do I know what is going on."

"Great." He said sarcastically and turned around. Now being boxed in, he decided to satiate his curiosity. The Phazon pool was turning red from the center. He wondered vaguely if it was bleeding lava, for that's what it looked like to him.

The Chief continued to watch as the pool writhed. He pondered his thought for a second and decided that pools of liquid should not be writhing. In a matter of moments the pool exploded, sending out a blast of the red-lava like substance. It splattered against the barrier and slid down the edge. Standing where the pool had been an instant before was a floating humanoid figure. It vaguely resembled a Covenant Elite that was made out of blue Phazon. Holstered to its waist was a weapon that resembled his plasma pistol, made of that lava-like substance and in its hand appeared to be a plasma rifle made of Phazon. It held the rifle out and the weapon disappeared, reappearing at its waist with the pistol now in its hand.

**15:34**

"What is that thing?" He exclaimed as he ducked to avoid a blast of the lava. His shields had completely faded away when the pool had exploded earlier. They had recharged quickly enough, but he didn't want to be hit again.

"I'm not sure. But that isn't molten rock that it's firing, Chief."

"Then. What. Is. It?" His sentence was punctuated by several blasts of the red substance coming from the enemy before him.

"Red Phazon. A variant that is several times more potent then blue Phazon. It was only encountered once, by Samus."

He found himself wondering why Samus wasn't in here. He had relied on her scan visor for vital information on weakness of tough opponents, which made his battles easier. He was sure that she did as well. She also had a great deal of base knowledge on this subject and would be able to offer a few hints as to what they might have to do. He felt sure that she had been trying to impart such knowledge on him before, but the barrier had muffled it.

He pushed the thoughts from his mind and focused on the fight in front of him. He ducked and rolled to avoid the blasts that it sent at him. However, Phazon did strike him on several occasions. He felt the burning sensation reach him through his shielding, which also took a lot of punishment with each hit.

The Chief ran around, firing his plasma rifle at the creature. It did nothing in either mode. He reached for the launcher, but decided that it would be difficult, if not impossible to hit his target with the slower moving rockets. Instead he put the rifle to his hip and pulled out the plasma pistol. He tried a regular shot in both modes, but it did nothing except make the creature fire at him faster. He was unsure if that was a sign of damage. He charged the pistol in the regular mode, not wanting to unleash its devastating nuclear capabilities inside the small area. The Phazon creature had changed weapons as well.

He moved to his right to avoid a strike, the Phazon hit the charging pistol. He thought for a moment that it would be destroyed, but instead the pistol seemed to gather the blue Phazon into its charge. The charge gained a blue tinge to the normally neon green glow.

"That's it!" Adam exclaimed so suddenly that the Chief almost misfired the pistol.

"What's it?" He inquired as he dodged another attack, machine gun fashion, of the blue Phazon.

"An old foe of Samus's. The details and the battle have been meticulously kept in her logs."

"Great, what does that mean?" He asked as he ducked a concentrated blast of the blue Phazon. It splattered against the barrier; some of it rebounded onto his back.

"She defeated it by using the Phazon it blasted at her, gathering it in her energy beam's charge and then firing it at the creature."

"Really?" He stood still and raised the pistol so that the muzzle was waiting to absorb a blast from his foe.

"Yes. According to the data that Samus has gathered, a being made of Phazon is weakest against that which it is made of."

"Still have no idea as to what this is?"

"No, I'm sorry."

He shrugged the thought off as the charge of the pistol increased in size as it absorbed a third blast. Now it was a brightly glowing turquoise orb. He figured that it was as full of Phazon as it could be and ran around, trying to get a good placement for the attack. It took ten seconds, but he found it and fired the blast. The blast scored a direct hit and the creature shrieked as the blue Phazon and plasma combo wrought havoc upon it.

It fired a blast at the Chief and he ducked to avoid the enormous attack. The Red Phazon splashed against the barrier, forming a dense pool on the ground as it slid down. His foe went back to firing rounds of blue Phazon, which he quickly collected in a charging pistol. He wondered if it was more strenuous on the creature of fire Red Phazon and that was why it fired the variant so infrequently.

After another half-minute of dodging and absorbing, his pistol was ready to fire again. It took him a quarter of a minute to get the placement he needed for a sure hit, but once he fired the pistol, the arching and slow charge found its home, burying into the creature's arm.

The battle kept on for another three minutes as he built of four more charges and hit it four more times.

It stared at him for a moment after being hit the fourth time. It fired several shots of blue Phazon at him and he quickly absorbed it into another charge. Then it seemingly changed weapons and fired red Phazon at him. He dodged. The creature seemed to cackle and it hovered into the air a shield of Phazon forming around it. The chief fired his fully loaded charge at the creature, but it ricocheted off of the shield and hit the dome of Phazon surrounding their battle. He watched as the creature in front of him changed color from blue to red. It was a three second process that incurred violent thrashing of the creature's body.

During the changeover, the Chief began to charge the pistol again, eyeing the thing warily. After the creature was completely made of Red Phazon, it landed on the ground and stood up, holding up the Phazon rifle. It was now red and the pistol blue. He wondered if the charge could hold Red Phazon and he held the pistol out to greet a blast of red Phazon, which was nearly the size of his torso. The pistol seemed to absorb the charge, but it immediately fired, unable to hold the charge for long. The creature was able to avoid the attack.

He frowned as he dodged another blast of similar proportions by the creature. "Got any ideas, Adam?"

"Theorizing. In the second mode, all of your weapons have greater strength and energy. If you were to switch the pistol over and charge it, you could possibly retain a charge long enough to fire."

The chief rolled to the side, flipped over, pushed himself off the ground several feet into the air and landed on his feet. He immediately broke into a run.

"A Phazon infused nuclear blast. Sounds like fun." He muttered, "Any other brilliant ideas?"


	49. Chapter 25 Of Timed Escapes 2

"A Phazon infused nuclear blast. Sounds like fun." He muttered, "Any other brilliant ideas?"

"I'm afraid not. If you could hold the charge, you could possibly fire it into the creature's mouth when it roars, as that is the moment you kept taking advantage of in the past. That might diffuse the force of the blast and with a temporary overcharge of your shields at the right moment, you could survive."

"And what if the charge doesn't hold?"

"You'll be in much the similar if you wait to see if it turns back."

"I don't like the sound of that."

**10:02**

"What are you doing? You can't just leave him!" Cortana exclaimed as Samus walked away from the dome that she had been only meters from earlier.

"I'm not."

"Then what are you doing?"

"It'll take too long to explain. Get the dropship to fly damn near out of the atmosphere, Cortana."

"Of course." The AI was capable of using the half of Adam's un-responsive chip that was in the drop ship to help Johnson pilot it. Since the Phazon barrier had been erected, she had been unable to communicate with the other AI. Her concern had only sky rocketed when Samus had explained Red Phazon to her and that Samus had no idea what the Chief was facing.

"Cortana, can you tell if the Chief is about to fire?"

"Yes, based on distorted images of the fight, I have been able to calculate when he will fire at the creature with a .01 deviation."

"Great, what about predicting five seconds ahead?"

"I could try with a 35 room for error."

Samus frowned. That would have to do. "Do it." She had figured, with her knowledge of Adam's thinking abilities, the Chief's reactions, knowledge on Red Phazon, and Cortana's hypothesis, that Adam would reach the same conclusion as Cortana. That the only way to get the pistol to hold red Phazon would be to have it charged in the Chozo mode, which could potentially fire what was basically a WMD. She knew that eventually the Chief would go along with it, as much distortion as the barrier provided, she had been able to sense his frustration during the battle and figured when Adam had come to the conclusion because of the hesitation that she was able to sense. She got ready to run.

"Now." Cortana whispered.

Samus immediately got into a sprint.

**9:54**

Adam had been right. In the second mode, the red Phazon had been collected into the brilliant charge, and the green had become a shade of muddy brown. And it held. Though the pistol was overheating and breaking down in his hands as he continued to hold it. He knew that this shout had to count; because likely it would be the last chance he could fire it, even if it did shift back.

So when the creature bellowed a battle cry, he fired. The blast found its way into the creature's mouth. Luck was on his side, the blast didn't hit the back of its throat, which would have cause the energy to spew mostly from its open mouth, instead it continued to travel downward into its gullet. The creature stopped, and continued as though it hadn't noticed the attack. Until it stopped short on the far end of the barrier from the Chief and began to glow white. Which was more luck; if it had been closer he could have died. Red Phazon splattered against the barrier as the charge expanded. There was a sonic boom as the creature was shredded to pieces. The high velocity Phazon hit the barrier and the barrier exploded. Which was more luck, if the barrier had held, he wouldn't have been able to start running from the blast.

When he was hit from behind, the overcharge Adam had given his shields gave out, though that wasn't what he had noticed. He was being propelled forwards. He looked down and saw that Samus had run into him with her Speed Booster on. He looked forward just in time to see the rock that Samus suddenly swerved behind. It was large, large enough to create a shadow of the blast just large enough to protect them both. The both sat with their backs pressed against the boulder. Time seemed to freeze as they waited the few seconds it took for the blast to fade.

When it was over, Samus looked at him. He started to stand and checked the pistol he was holding tightly to. It was completely destroyed. He threw it to the ground behind him, which had been turned to glass, crackled slightly at the weight.

Samus stood up as well. "Do you realize how lucky you are?"

The Chief blinked and tried to understand Samus. He wasn't quite sure, but the air suddenly looked like a dense fog had rolled in and everything wavered in his vision, and her words seemed to be unintelligible, as though she spoke a foreign language. He had a vague moment to wonder if this was what drunkards felt like before his mind stopped working altogether.

"Since when did you bleed Phazon, Samus?" He asked. And then he collapsed. Barely standing to suddenly face first on the ground. At his question Samus was slightly bemused and she looked down. Her armor was covered in red Phazon, right where the Chief's back had come into contact with her front. She looked down at his back and swore vehemently. It had a few traces of Phazon on it. She used her scan visor and cursed even more.

**Classification: Spartan-117**

**Red Phazon at high concentration and velocity impacted subject's back. It went through the power suit completely saturated and corrupted by blue Phazon at an earlier date. Phazon is now in the subject's body and spreading. Corruption imminent, estimate 5 hours. Estimate twenty minutes before subject regains consciousness.**

She turned the scanner off as she heard a familiar voice behind her. "I have reports of foreign objects having been scattered about this world. Would you tell me what they are?" She turned around and saw, to her grief, Guilty Spark floating in the air.

"Presents." Samus said. She saw several sentinels in the area, hovering about two drop ships.

"Interesting. I wonder what they are. Would you give the index back to me?"

"No can do." Samus replied. She pointed her left hand at the ship. "What are they doing?"

"Preventing you from escaping. I have more in case you call for reinforcements. I must have the index. I will take it back by force if I need to."

Samus looked at the Chief's comatose body. "Let me put him on the ship."

"No." the monitor said as it floated closer, getting between her in the ship.

"Tell you what, I'll give you the index if you let me do that."

"Splendid. You may do so at once."

"What are you doing?" Cortana asked Samus.

Samus ignored the AI and picked up the fallen Spartan. She remotely activated the gravity beam from the ship Johnson was in and sent him a binary message, in Chozo, giving him some instructions once the Chief was safely aboard. With any luck the translator would work for him and the message would appear in English on the screen, but the monitor would be unable to understand it if he intercepted it. Once the Chief was under the beam, lying on his back, she wrestled the chip Cortana was in out of her left forearm after collapsing her cannon and put it on the Chief's chest. Once he was in the ship the monitor floated over to her.

"The index?"

"Right here." Samus gave Guilty Spark an archaic gesture involving one finger and leapt at the nearest sentinel. She activated her plasma sword and landed on top of it. It started to fall. She cut away the laser eye beam and cleft the sentinel in two. The drop ships began to move as the others began to fire at them. They escaped the fire with a minute clearing.

Holding up the eye that she had taken, Samus was able to activate it with a pulse from her suit. She blasted away the other sentinels. The monitor turned towards her.

"I'm not sure that this was part of our bargain." It said confused and floated towards her. She fired the eye at it. The monitor dodged and continued to fly closer as more sentinels appeared. "Unless, of course, you were deceiving me so that you could allow them to escape while sacrificing your own life."

"Almost right," Samus said darkly and used the eye beam to kill more sentinels.

**7:48**

The monitor stopped and the drones that had been flying in turned away. "Very well. If you insist on killing the security drones, I suppose I'll have to take care of this myself."

Samus smiled, that had been exactly what she wanted to hear. She threw the eye into the air and quickly deactivated her power suit. It warped to the drop ship that Johnson was in instead of being absorbed into her wrist implant.

The monitor stopped to inspect her closely, as though trying to divine logic to her actions. Her skin became transparent as it watched, along with her hair changing to lavender and eyes becoming a vibrant green. She smiled wildly; it was an almost sinister expression. Samus unrolled her glove, baring her wrist, and caught the eye as it fell down. Samus pressed a few buttons on the implant and electricity sparked out from her wrist, tearing through her invisible skin. A clear and thin fluid ran from her body. It grabbed a hold of the eye and attached it to her wrist. She leapt into the air as the monitor fired a blast of energy at her.

Samus ran around the monitor as it chased her with attacks. She was also sharply spiraling inwards. The closer she got, the higher it rose. Samus chuckled at a joke the monitor didn't understand.

"You're not a Reclaimer!"

"Damn straight." She replied.

"What are you?"

"No one really," Samus said as she leapt upwards, aiming at the monitor nearly fifty feet in the air, "Just a bounty hunter, who's about to kill you."

She twisted slightly in mid air to avoid a blast aimed at her heart and grabbed onto the bottom part of the wrap around housing. The monitor flew around violently as it tried to shake her off. She held on tighter, careful of the eye on the bottom of her left wrist and closed her eye. The glow around the monitor began to fade as she drained its energy. She let go after draining almost all of its energy. Aware that she had precious few moments before its nano machines restored it, she pressed a few buttons on her implant and the eye beam loosened a lancet of red energy, it passed straight through the monitor's eye. The monitor and the eye exploded in a screech of metal. Shrapnel pierced her body as she landed on the ground, the thin clear fluid pouring from her wounds.

She looked up and groaned, noticing the mass amounts of Flood that had appeared. She pulled out her emergency pistol and began fighting them off, hoping that the drop ship would come back for her soon. She turned a knob on the side of the pistol, and energy flew from it, form a straight beam that resembled a sword. Using it, she was able to cut through combat forms and then turning the knob slightly with the hand holding the pistol, she softened the energy beam, and used it as a whip and popped infection forms that were getting close. Then she switched back to the sword and fought more combat forms.

In this fashion she was able to fight for several minutes. Until the inevitable occurred. An infection form jumped her from behind and sunk one of its tentacles into her spine. All of the Flood seemed to stop at that point.

**0:57**

Wildly enraged, Samus lifted up her left hand and grabbed a hold of the infection form. Her eyes shone as she stole its life energy. It went limp and she squeezed, popping it. She felt her body be lifted up from the ground as the drop ship Johnson and the Chief were in came back and hoisted her from the ground. Once she was in, the hatch closed under her while the lift was still holding her in the air.

**0:49**

Samus landed on the deck of the drop ship and looked around the bay. John's body was lashed to the floor with rope. She looked over to Johnson, who was sitting in the pilot's seat, staring at her. The holograms of the two AI's were also looking at her. She ignored them and walked over to the Chief.

**0:43**

"Get us the hell out of here," She snapped as she found an object lying on the floor and charged it with the energy she had taken from Guilty Spark. He body returned to normal. The thin liquid remained where it had been, but now she was bleeding crimson blood from opaque skin. Her blue eyes examined the Chief through her disheveled blonde hair.

**0:30**

In half of a minute, the Oculus exploded. It spread quickly, triggering the chain reaction as Samus and Adam had planned. The craters created by the explosions weakened the ring's integrity, and as it continued to spin, it tore itself apart in seven places.

"Ma'am, may I inquire as to what in the hell are you?" Johnson asked.

"No you may not," Samus replied as the AI's guided their ship and the other off of the ring world. A moment later there was a burning sensation about her neck and she grabbed it, she felt the hole that the infection form had left in the back of her neck over her spine.


	50. Chapter 26 Of Infiltration

Hope you don't mind if this is one segment. It's a little shorter then the rest.

* * *

**1702 Hours, September 2, 2552 (Military Calendar)**

**550 kilometers from the **_**Migration**_** Blue Team Log**

The journey back was silent. Johnson kept throwing back glances to Samus, who was wholly focused on the Chief. She had moved him onto a seat. Other then that, she dared not to touch him. She sat next to him and periodically checked on his pulse and other bodily functions. Heavily weakened and exhausted, Samus had called for her suit.

Samus lurched to her left as deceleration flowed through the drop ship as they came closer to the Migration's docking bay. The shield was let down as they neared and Johnson, with Cortana's help, landed the ship in the middle of the bay. As the ship settled, Samus pulled herself out of her seat. She looked over to the Chief and watched as he slowly began to stir. She watched him carefully.

Consciousness came to him slowly. He was vaguely aware of a painful feeling in his gut as he became more and more awake. John found himself grateful for the pain. It was a dull burning sensation, however it ate at all of his thought processes and distracted him from evaluating his current situation. He was able to slowly feel that several chords restrained him, flexing his muscles; he found that they didn't so much as budge, so he stopped. He opened his eyes, which hurt the most out of everything in his body, and found them to be hyper sensitive to the light. Every object he saw was tinged red at their outlines. He wondered what that meant and carefully looked around, gingerly flexing his muscles.

The Chief spotted Samus staring at him, hand raised over the button that activated her scanner. He studied her and realized that she was scanning him. He wondered why and then remembered what had happened.

"Samus?" He questioned, wanting to ask more about his situation, but he found his voice hurt to say much more then her name.

"You're yourself, for now." She said calmly and began to undo a restraint over his foot.

"For now?" He asked. Emotion flooded his mind before he could control it. He tried to stem the anger flowing in him at Samus's words; he didn't even understand the source of the rage. Samus looked at him sharply and fixed the restraint.

Samus looked him over carefully with her green eyes. The rage that had broken out in him had overwhelmed her; it took most of her will not to react to his anger with her own. She had been afraid of this. When he hadn't violently tried to break loose, she figured he wasn't too affected by the Phazon in him and had deemed it safe to release him. But at the sharp rage she had instantly react by tightening the restraint she had half loosened. Now he was confused and angry. It was a poor state to let someone as strong as him loose in.

"Yes. When your foe exploded, you were struck in the back by highly concentrated Red Phazon."

"So?" He said irritably.

"It went straight through your suit and into you."

"Meaning?" He was confused at the impatience he responded with.

"Meaning it's corrupting your body. Corruption takes a strong toll on the mind most notably." In her own phase of corruption, she had experienced extremes of emotions, swinging dramatically between anger and sorrow. It had scared her how little control she had had over her own mind and it took her a long time to be able to deal with the corruption. "If you expect me to let you loose, you need to control the emotions you're feeling."

He nodded and closed his eyes, concentrating. It usually took very little time or effort to force any emotion to the back burner to be dealt with later. The anger was fading at her explanation, creeping backwards at the revelation of its source, like an animal shying after being spotted on the hunt. However, it still took a moment for him to rid his mind of the residue frustration that had been left behind in the anger's wake. He was wildly confused, and that too took some time to tame. Afterwards, he opened his eyes, looked up at Samus, and nodded.

She nodded and quickly undid the restraints. He stood up and looked at her once she stood as well. Then he looked over at Johnson, who was shifting in his seat, almost nervously. He wondered why, and the thought that it might be because of him came to his thoughts. At that the anger began to return, but he quickly dammed it and shook his head.

"You okay, Chief?" He heard Cortana ask timidly. He nodded.

"There is some good news," Adam said calmly, as though there were nothing unusual. "Using the Chozo technology, I've quickly calculated that with Dr. Hasley's help, I could run an eight and a half hour therapy that would rid your body of the red Phazon in it, Chief."

"Great. But what about the Covenant ship? That's why we're here." He replied instantly.

"Still on the agenda, I think. Scans indicate that there are some Covenant ships left…on the other side of the planet. The _Migration_ moved in orbit after launch to the opposite side of the ring world and the drop ship flew there in the confusion after the explosion."

"Let's get that done then."

"Chief, I would highly recommend against delaying the therapy. The effects that the Phazon would have on your mind would be irreversible. I can't undo that. It could be hours until that mission's finished."

"I don't have time to waste, Adam, until the mission's over."

The computer AI sighed. Samus quickly collapsed from pain, her left hand clutching the back of her neck over the armor. The Chief turned towards her quickly, he felt concerned and worried. He controlled the sudden onslaught of emotions before bending down next to her and examining the area she was trying to hold. She was making no noise, but he could tell that she was in pain.

"Samus?"

She stopped, her body relaxed and she shook her head. "Nothing. I'm fine."

He felt like retorting to her, angry at her lack of response to her concern, but held his tongue. That was a civilian behavior, Spartans didn't act like that.

"Like hell you are." Johnson said as he got out of the pilot's seat. "One of those freak shows got to you."

"I killed it before it could do anything." Samus replied calmly as she stood up. The Chief stared at her, concerned at Johnson's revelation. There was a whirring sound.

"Except infect you with its DNA," Adam said. Samus cursed silently. "The medical bay is also capable of fixing that problem as well, in a therapy of almost equal length."

"And I can wait too." Samus said. "Cortana, I want you to muster the surviving Spartans here. Johnson, you can go and get attended to by the doctor."

There was a moment's pause. "Fine, ma'am."

"Oh," Samus said and she pulled Adam's chip from the bay and handed it to Johnson, "Take this to the bridge and put it in its slot. Adam can pilot the _Migration_ a lot better then the ship board AI."

Johnson saluted and got out of the bottom of the drop ship. There was Cortana's voice over the PA system calling the Spartans. In the list Samus heard that Kelly and Linda had survived the mission and had made it back safely. She looked over at John; she could tell that he was relieved.

"What's up?"

He frowned at the thought that had gone through his mind at the roster, none of his brothers and sisters were more important then the other. But he was grateful that Kelly and Linda had survived beyond the rest. He took a moment to purge the thought. "I'm relieved that some of the members of the unreported teams made it back alright, and that they all weren't caught in the explosion."

"Yes, that is fortunate," Samus replied calmly. He stared at her for a moment and then dropped out of the bottom of the drop ship. They were going to take this one to infiltrate the Covenant ship.

He watched as the Spartans mustered in the bay. He spotted Kelly instantly in her corrupted armor. They gathered in front of both of them and stood straight, waiting for their orders.

John teetered for a moment between telling them to be at ease and going straight into the mission specifics. He didn't want them to be that tense, but he knew that his Spartans would never react to the command and it would only cause them to wonder if he was alright. He began to wonder that himself before ignoring the question he already knew the answer to, promptly pushed all thoughts on that line to the back of his mind, and began.

He swept over the Spartans' biorhythms, and found that they were all acceptable for the mission. There was a question that he wanted to ask Samus, but he didn't have the time to now.

Instead, over a one-way transmission came Samus's voice, "Everything's blocked off by solid quarantine fields. There's no chance of Flood Infection forms getting to anyone onboard."

He wondered if she was capable of reading minds for upwards of the five hundredth time. During their journey she seemed to react instantly to what he thought would be a good position and job for her. If she could, he didn't complain because it was useful on the field.

He spoke, "Everyone is going to come with Samus and myself to the Covenant ship so that we can grab it. Three of you will remain onboard, the rest will return to the _Migration_."

"Are one of you going to stay with the other three, sirs?" Kelly asked.

"No immediately. There are some things that we have to take care of onboard the _Migration_, but one of us will come back to the Migration," Samus said as John tried to find a way to explain the situation to the Spartans.

"Who's staying aboard, sir?"

"I'll tell you when we have successfully taken control of the Covenant cruiser. Get on the drop ship after you get your weapons. Use the Covenant based ones mainly, they don't need ammunition."

"Yes, sir!" The Spartans responded in unison. They went to the weapons rack and grabbed what they needed. Samus looked over at him. He ignored her look of concern.

"Samus, you'll be piloting."

She nodded and got on board as well. He waited for the six Spartans to get back and in the drop ship before entering himself. Once all of the Spartans were situated, clustered near the exit, and belted into their seats, Samus took off.

The world was large, and the _Migration_ was using micro blasts from the thrusters to keep in a steady position directly on the opposite side of the planet that the debris of Halo orbited around. Samus understood that the _Migration_ could get no data from the other side of a gas giant, so she would have approximately one second to take in what was going on and decide a course of action. Cortana was there to help correct her, but she would make the initial call, Cortana was a fast AI, and so she could make corrections in her plan before anything went wrong. Samus decided that the best decision was a slingshot around the planet. It wouldn't be as fast as it could, considering that she would only be getting half the speed of a full slingshot orbit, but it would still be fast. As the gees of the orbit began to sink in and multiply the artificial gravity of the drop ship, Samus turned off the gravity boosters, making it so that the only gees were those created by the orbit, so that the Spartans wouldn't be crushed by gravity five times that of earth.

As they came around the planet, she saw that there were only a few ships remaining. Most had been surprised by the expansive explosion and were either damaged, out of commission, or destroyed. Their drop ship had been lucky to be fast enough to get away as the Oculus ripped through the ring's layers to get out in the open. She also saw the scattered remains of the ring world and held a wry smile. She wanted to see the Flood survive that. However, she surveed the scene as it revealed herself and spotted one undamaged crusier. It had been in the background and was perhaps the largest ship that the Covenant had. It seemed that the Space Pirates had either left, or been destroyed.

She grimaced and plotted a course towards the cruiser. Cortana fixed it up and piloted the ship. She looked back at the Chief as he surveyed her selection and he nodded in approval. As they came in, the undamaged ships fired at them, but eventually stopped as they came closer to the larger cruiser. It continued to fire at them, but with Cortana's help, their speed, and their angle of approach, they narrowly avoided the laser blasts.

As they got close enough, Samus fired the drop ships only weapon. It lanceted out of the small muzzle attached tot he bottom of the ship. It hit the shields of the cruiser and they rippled. As the blast continued for its one second duration, the area of the shields that she was firing at fell. There was a negative deceleration that slammed into the occupants of the bay as Cortana slowed their entrance. They still were going fast as they entered a troop bay that was open due to Cortana's swift hacking capabilities. The ship rammed into the top of the bay and landed with a gentle blast of the thrusters. The Spartans quickly jumped out of the drop ship and were followed by their leaders. The Covenant in the bay were startled to see the humans had come into their ship and dazed by the leaking gasses that the impact of ship to ceiling of troop bay had made.

The enemy soldiers were taken out in a brief and one-sided firefight. Once the soliders were dead, John jumped back into the drop ship, grabbed Cortana's entire chip, and reemerged, placing the chip into the nape of his neck.

He signaled for the Spartans to make their way through the ship in two groups and meet at the bridge. His group was Samus, Kelly and Linda. They flashed their acknoledgement lights. Samus, Kelly, and Linda waited for him to lead the way. They pushed through the narrower corridors and killed any Covenant warrior that got in their way.

"Stop." Cortana commaned. He listened to her. "There should be a port somewhere around here. If you insert the lesser half of the chip in, I can easily hack into the ship's computer systems. I can vent most of the atmosphere out of anywhere that's not on your paths to the bridge, thus killing almost all of the Covenant soldiers."

He nodded and did as she said. However, she was stil there in the other half of the partitioned chip, the two halves communicating and sharing critcal data. He still didn't understand how the technology worked himself.

Then they continued. It was another hour before they reached the level with the bridge, and ten beyond that until they were at the bridge. To get through some tight spaces, he had needed to turn off his shielding to squeeze through. At the bridge, the door was beginning to close, but he ran forwards and pulled the two sides of the sliding door apart., legs spread wide to brace himself.

The Covenant Captain of the ship noticed the Spatan and came over, activating his plasma sword, as if to cut the Spartan in two. He realized all to late that he had forgotten to reactivate his shielding and began to move toavoid the sword strike. He stopped when Samus jumped off the corridor's wall, rolled into a ball straight through his legs, and stood in front of him. She was too late to use a blast from her arm cannon to stop the strike, and if she let it hit, with the slight heigh difference between herself and the chief, she knew that his head still might get hit. So instead she raised her left arm and formed her own plasma sword, blocking the strike.

The Elite seemed surprised by her weapon, but he roared.

Samus unsterstood it as a challenge and a cry of joy at a decent duel. She grunted and pushed her weight forwards, forcing the Elite backwards. The Elite staggered and brought his sword up to parry her strike. They both pushed forwards, willing the toher to be weaker. As Samus noticed that the Elite was getting the best of her, she jumped to the side, bringing her sword away. The Elite was surprised by her motion and fell forwards as there was nothing to counter his uneven balance. The Elite whirled around as Samus thrust at it. Her sword scraped his shielding, but nothing more.

The Elite was propped against the ground, using the hand that wasn't holding the sword to keep him from falling backwards. It rolled to the side and stood up as Samus took her turn to fall forward. As the Elite swung at her, she jumped up, bringing her knees to her chest and rotating in the air to avoid the strike. She landed, turned on her heels and meet the Elite's rushing charge.

As they stood in deadlock, Samus's vision twisted sharply and pain raced through her body, starting from the back of her neck. She frown and struggled to keep the Elite at bay as her strength began to ebb away as her nerves inflamed. There was a crack in the air and the Elite's shiels gave out. Samus began to collapse forwards, but was caught by a running Spartan in black armor. She heard the sound of plasma fire and twisted to see that the Elite was shot by another Spartan in black armor.

She began to question who had pulled her out of the way, but found her voice too weak. The Spartan let her go, and Samus struggled to stay standing. She heard the door on the other side of the bridge open and groaned.

"Just the others, sir." The Spartan said. She nodded and walked to the ramp that led to the elevated platform that had everything all the controls of the bridge. She leaned against the railing, clecnhing her left fist in pain.

She looked over and saw that the other black armored Spartan had forced the Elite into an escape pod attached to the bridge and forced the Elite out of the ship. The Spartan, John, walked over to the bridge and inserted the main half of Cortana's chip into a nearby slot. Her hologram appeared the cluster of holographic displays.

"Kelly, I want you to go back and get the other half of Coratana's chip and bring it here." He told the Spartan standing in front of Samus.

"Yes, sir." Kelly said and ran out of the bridge. She returned in fifteen minutes. By that time, the pain coursing through Samus had become almost unbearable. She barely listened to the passing conversation.

Although he was the main participant of the coversation, John wished that he could ignore it as well. As time passed he found several mental images, words, sentences, and even streams of words harder to ignore. He refused to pause as he talked to push the things back, that would mean showing weakness and would raise alarms in the Spartans.

"Kelly, Linda, Fred. You are to stay on board and make sure that the Covenant don't retake the bridge if there are any left alive on board. Issac, Wil, Grace you're to return to the _Migration_ with Samus and myself." He walked down from the elevated platform where he had reunited the two halves of Cortana's chip.

"Yes, sir."

"Unil I return from the _Migration_, Kelly will be in charge here."

The Spartans stirred at his words. He was leaving Kelly in charge when Fred was the natural choice, he was one rank higher then Kelly. John frowned.

"Uh, sir," Kelly said, "With all due respect, shouldn't Fred be in charge?"

He felt anger but ignored it. "No. You're in charge until I return, Kelly." He said, ignoing the desire to give her a stronger and angrier rebuttal for questioning his orders.

"Right, sir. Sorry, sir."

He wanted to tell her that it was alright, that his decision was weird, but such behavior would undermine his authrity over the Spartans.

"Samus." He said, looking at the Chozo warrior. "We're leaving."

She jumped, as though sanpped out of a reverie, and looked at him. "What? Huh, oh." She said, taking in what he had told her. He stared at her for a moment, wondering why she had not been paying attention and ignored it.

"Cortana, keep the ship out of trouble, Link up with Adam and pick somewhere to go."

"Of course, Chief. You okay?"

He didn't respond to the question. The Chief, Samus, Wil, Issac, and Grace left the other three Spartans in the bridge. It took them thrre quarters of an hour to return to the troop bay and get back on the drop ship. From there it was a thirty minute flight back to the _Migration_, which had come around the other side of the planet, and was helping the Spartan controlled cruiser fight off the remaming battle-ready or slipspace capable Covenant ships.


	51. Chapter 27 Of Treatment

**2017 Hours, September 2, 2552 (Military Calendar)**

**Inside the **_**Migration's**_** loading bay**

John had gotten out of the drop ship first. He watched the three Spartans get out and stand before him. Samus jumped down and began to wobble unstably before reaching out and grabbing one of the thrusters on the bottom hull of the ship. For her part, he noticed, she made it look like a natural motion of going to lean in impatience against the thruster.

"Wil, take the others and have Adam check all of you over in medical bay Beta once we're out of system. Get anything out of the ordinary treated. After that, rest for three hours and then," he paused, what could the Spartans do on the _Migration_ while he and Samus were being treated, "Find out what's going on and do whatever you deem necessary."

"Yes, sir." Wil responded instantly. "Can I ask about what's going on, sir?"

"Not important right now." He replied calmly. "Samus will fill you in afterwards." He added. He felt the look that Samus shot him and ignored it. Once the three Spartans had filed out, he looked over at her. She shook her head, reached up to rub the back of her neck, realized that there was at least an inch of armor and shielding between her neck and the air, and put her hand down.

"Shall we?" She grunted to him.

He nodded. They walked out of the bay and towards the Alpha medical bay. He glanced over at Samus when an evasive maneuver of the ship threw her against the wall. He had been able to counter balance the sudden force and barely moved. He helped her to stand up once he spotted that she was having difficulty.

"What's wrong?" He didn't understand why she was having more difficulty in dealing with a lighter condition then he was with the Red Phazon. Johnson had been hit by the Flood and not been infected like she had, and the marine seemed to be less afflicted. She looked him in the eye. He saw that her eyes had changed color and, even though the visor blocked discernment of most colors, the tips of her ears seemed to be going transparent.

She visibly winced. "Because I'm not fully human." She responded with a huff. Samus grunted and forced herself to walk forwards. "It's taking a grater toll on me then it should."

"Chozo DNA, right?" He asked, catching up to her.

"Something like that." She didn't even question how he knew that.

"Do you need help walking?" He asked her. He was temporarily stunned by the question. It had been impulsive and uncontrolled, stemming from concern over her condition, not the desire to get from point to point faster and easier. The complete opposite of what it should have been.

Samus chuckled dryly in the silence that followed. "No. I'm fine."

He held his tongue for the rest of the walk and while in the elevator. He had a nearly uncontrollable urge to have a light conversation with Samus. That was something he always avoided. He never talked unless it was absolutely necessary. Not to mention, he wanted to avoid other impulsive statements spawned by the corruptive Phazon in his body.

When they arrived at the medical bay, they saw that Doctor Hasley was pacing around the room frantically. She looked at them when the door slid open and rushed over to the two.

"Finally!" She exclaimed and made motions of pushing them towards the center of the room. "When Adam had told me what had happened and explained the circumstances, I was wondering if either of you would make it back in a stable condition."

"What do you mean, doctor?" He asked before he could hold the question back.

She hurried towards the control panel in the corner of the room. She pressed a button and two of the benches, which were part of a circle around the large mechanical device in the center of the room, collapsed to the floor. "Especially you, John. Now stand on the benches, in the center, face out."

They responded and stood on them. Samus was to his left, and he could see her by looking in that direction. There was a whirr of machinery activating and he felt his suit stripped of him along with the skin suit that the Chozo had provided him with. Looking off to the left, he saw that the same had happened to Samus. At the sight of her lithe body naked, he was surprised by how the image affected him. Forcing his eyes to move up her arms instead of down, he saw something that made the feeling fade more swiftly then it had come.

The skin around the back of her neck was mottling green, like it was in a form of necrosis. He recognized the sickening color of the Flood. Spreading out from the rancid flesh, her skin was that transparent color, showing her veins and arteries, which looked like they were withering. The hair around the nape of her neck was lavender instead of blonde. He watched her body spasm and the afflicted area of her body spread, the transparency engulfing most of her face and the mottled flesh consumed her neck. The same affect started to appear on her elbows, shoulders, knees, hips, wrists, and ankles. It took all the military training from the age of seven to prevent himself from leaving his spot on the floor and rushing over to her. Her lips were taught with holding back the agony he could tell was overwhelming her.

There was the sound of keys being pressed and he heard something slid out of the ceiling and floor nearby. Watching Samus, he saw a glass tube, tainted orange fall from the ceiling and an opaque gray metal tube rise from the floor. He looked around swiftly and saw that the same thing had happened to him. Suddenly he felt enclosed, and his muscles tensed as he resisted the urge to try and break out. He returned to watching Samus. The metal half stopped at her shoulders. Machines and wires dropped from the ceiling and stopped short of her body. He subconsciously recognized the fact that the same was happening to him, but when he thought about it, the feeling of being trapped came back and he had to restrain the feeling by ignoring it.

Something cold seeped through the floor and slid up his legs. It was slimy in texture and his body was covered instantly in goose bumps. As the liquid continued to climb, he wondered about breathing and watched Samus to see what the machines would do about it. They did nothing, and he began to feel exhaustion creep into his body. But when it got to his shoulders, he began to rise with the liquid, as did Samus. Until her waist was above the metal half of the tube they were in. At this point the wires began to dart around and attach themselves to her body. He felt stinging sensations, and with a brief glance, confirmed that the same was happening to him. A large device planted itself over the back of Samus's neck, and he felt the majority of them dig into his back.

The wires and machinery halted their upward progress. The liquid continued to rise above them and filled all the way to the ceiling. John held his breath when the liquid reached his neck. He wanted to break free of the wires and break the glass of the tubing to get air. He looked over at Samus; she had closed her eyes and had her mouth hanging open. Watching, he saw her chest swell and deflate as though she were breathing.

That was impossible. She was not in air; her mouth was covered in a strange liquid. John momentarily considered his options. His body was trying to force him to breathe in, lungs burning for oxygen. He knew he would pass out if he didn't breath, and yet there didn't seem to be a way to. John caved in mentally, trusting in what he saw of Samus. He exhaled through his nose and opened his mouth and inhaled. The liquid didn't go into his mouth; it seemed to be held back. Even though it was a liquid, he found himself able to breath. As he did though, he felt drowsy. After a moment he lost consciousness.

"And you're sure that they can breath, Adam?"

"Their monitored vitals will tell you that much. The membrane that the chemical forms when it comes in contact with the skin, or air, processes the oxygen mixed into the chemical so that they can breath. It also processes the anesthetic into a breathable form." Adam said as he appeared by the holographic monitor on the desk in the medical bay.

Doctor Hasley nodded and walked over. She sat down and examined the screen. "I have to admit, it is ingenious. Such a chemical lessens the worries of tangling wires or the oxygen tubing getting in the way of vital processes."

"Exactly."

Her eyebrows furrowed. "Adam?"

There was a three second pause before he responded, "Yes, Doctor?" She looked at his hologram. For humans the pause was nothing, for computers it was something like a week. "I beg your pardon, doctor, the cruiser Cortana is piloting took some damage. I've had to allocate some functions to help her out and get us out of here safely." It was another six seconds and then acceleration slammed into the ship, pressing Hasley against the back of her chair. It petered out and she was able to return to a normal seated position.

"Adam what's going on?"

"I opened a rift in space using the _Migration's_ warp features and managed to allow the cruiser Cortana's in to follow. We're on a heading towards an inner colony. Now what were you going ask before?"

Hasley pointed to the line of data that corresponded to the Chief's heartbeat. "It spiked suddenly a moment after you removed his armor. And then his heart skipped a beat. His breathing also picked up and then slowed in the same time frame. Is that some form of bodily reaction to the Phazon corruption that his suit was warding off?"

"Try again," Adam said mischievously. "Check the track on his eye motions."

"He was," Hasley looked at his positioning. If he looked to his left then, "looking at Samus?"

"Correct. Care to place a bet as to why?"

The doctor looked confused and looked back at the data. "That doesn't even make sense." She sated simply. "The catalytic thyroid implant had a 100 rate of suppression of the sex drive in the Spartans."

"Two points. First point, suppression, not destruction. Second, Phazon corrupts the mind as well as the body. That would explain the spike and breathing and in pulse. When his breathing slowed, his eyes had moved to her neck."

Hasley frowned and looked at the data again. She eventually relented to the idea Adam had presented her with. She looked at Samus. "The effects of the Flood DNA in her body."

"Correct."

"Adam, you never fully explained that to me."

"And I'm afraid that I will continue to do the same. The lady's biological information is her own to give out. Would you please go down to medical bay Beta and examine the Spartans?"

"I'll have them come up here." Hasley replied and activated the comm. line. She called the Spartans up.

In a few minutes Wil, Isaac, and Grace walked into the medical bay. They stopped for a moment and started at the two tubes with John and Samus in them. Wil looked around, spotted the doctor, who was readying some materials, and called out.

"Doctor, what's going on?"

"They took some extensive injuries from biological weapons." She said dismissively, "But they should be fine after eight hours of treatment. I don't think that you'll be so wounded, but I don't want to leave in case of an emergency."

"Of course, doctor." Wil said, still confused. Close examination had proved that Samus's body had taken some heavy alterations, while John's seemed the same. "Were they different weapons, doctor?"

"Yes."

The doctor quickly checked them over and had their armor shipped via electronic particles to the engineering bay for repairs. The Spartans left the medical bay and she settled down for a few hours of reading. She eventually nodded off and was awoken by Adam several hours later.

"Doctor, there appears to be some form of misgiving on the bridge. I'm having trouble quelling the disorder as a hologram. Could you go up there?"

She blearily rubbed her eyes, "What's the problem, Adam?"

"The Chief failed to specify who was in charge on the ship while he and Samus are being treated, and Major Silva refuses to listen to a computer. He's bullying the Spartans, for lack of a better term."

The doctor sighed and got out of her chair. "I doubt he'll listen to a civilian, but I'll try." She walked out of the room and the door locked closed behind her.

Several minutes later the liquid around the Chief began to drain. A series of loops dropped from the ceiling and wound around John's ankles, waist, and shoulders, pulling his body into a horizontal position as most of the wires attached to him began to retract. The bench that had been recessed into the floor rose up and the loops gently placed him on the surface, slipping away as they did. The medical treatment tube separated into two halves again, the bottom half fell into the floor as the other rose into the ceiling. A thin wire with a small needle fell from the ceiling over his chest. The needle's head buried itself into his skin and was quickly whipped away.


	52. Chapter 27 Of Treatment 2

A moment later his eyes opened. He immediately sat up and moved to the edge of the bench.

"Doctor?" He called out.

"I had to ask Doctor Hasley to go to the bridge, Chief." Adam said as his hologram appeared almost life size in the room.

"What for?"

"I'll explain it to the both of you once Samus awakes. I need your help for that, though."

He nodded and jumped off the bench and onto his feet. His back stung and had a pins and needles feeling, but he ignored it. He looked over at the tube Samus was in and looked curiously. Her skin was gently pulsating between two forms, regular and that transparent state.

"Chief, before I wake Samus, I need you to go over there." Adam's hologram pointed towards a chair in a corner of the room. "And sit please, I need to see how successful the therapy was."

The Spartan nodded and sat down. Devices jumped out from the walls. He was startled, but held his position, seated in the center of the chair. A holographic monitor appeared in front of him and began to flash images. They were too fast for him to see what the images were, but emotions flowed through him as the images continued to appear. As anger welled at how pointless he felt the exercise to be, he was able to quell it with moderate difficulty, but it was easier then before. The devices flew back into the wall.

"Excellent, as I thought. You can get up now, Chief."

"What?" He asked as he stood up.

"Some neural connections and pathways have been permanently altered, there's no fixing them. However, without the Red Phazon in your body to feed the drastic emotions, you should be able to control and adapt to the changes in time."

"Good to hear." He said and walked over to where Samus was. The liquid around her began to drain and the same process of settling her on the bench occurred. Her skin seemed to have settled on the more human appearance. The constant change was unsettling. He found himself having to force his eyes to look at her face. During the therapy he had had awkward dreams about her, and the feeling that came from looking at her was beginning to get uncomfortable. He wondered what was causing it.

"Why do you need my help, Adam?" He managed to get out sounding almost normally.

"Because, Samus will need some medications put into her implant to be dispersed throughout her body. It's almost impossible without a real person inserting the needle into her skin."

"What will I be looking for?"

"On her left wrist, there's a slight bulge. If you feel the skin in that area with gentle pressure, you can find a bump in the surface of the implant. The needle needs to be inserted there, but to do that, you'll have to press hard enough to get the bump to retract. Understand?"

He nodded and watched as the wire with the needle dropped from the ceiling and buried itself into her shoulder. It retracted into the ceiling instantly. A tray jumped out of the foot of the bench. It had three vials and one needle.

Samus's eyes slowly opened, she winced and clenched her eyes closed. Her eyes had become hyper-sensitized to light. She kept them closed for a few seconds before opening them again. She looked around the room, everything was blurred.

Samus groaned and sat up, swinging her legs over the edge of the bench. Her head throbbed and she felt like bending over and throwing up. Samus vaguely wondered if this was what being piss-drunk, having a hangover, and a fever all at the same time felt like. She uttered a mild Chozo curse and rubbed her head.

"Samus," She heard someone call her name. It was off to her right. She turned her head sharply, felt red come to her cheeks and looked upwards. She looked at the Chief with furrowed eyebrows. "Give me your hand." She offered the hand closest to him, her right one. "The other one, Samus." She blinked, put the hand down and gave him her left.

He reached down and came up with a needle. He felt around her wrist and then inserted the needle after pressing his thumb onto the implant. Then he attached one of the three vials to the top of the needle. The liquid drained quickly, and he followed it up with the other two in succession. After that, he retracted the needle.

Fire traced through her quickly. It drained all of her adverse physical feelings and she felt alive and more awake then she had in years. She shook her head, blonde hair still sticky from the chemical clung to her body when it fell over her shoulders, back and front.

"Hey, Chief." Samus said with a smile as she stood. "Good to see you."

He nodded, not trusting his voice as the uncomfortable feeling continued to rise. He struggled with it before getting it to the back of his mind. She reached to the implant and pressed one of the hidden buttons after feeling around for a moment. Around her body formed the gray uniform of a commissioned officer. The Chief straightened as he noticed her rank, training over riding everything else. She was a Commander.

Samus looked at him and then down at the uniform. She blinked and then looked at Adam's hologram. "What's going on, Adam?" She exclaimed.

"Nothing, Samus. It's just that I needed you to wear your uniform for a slight situation on the bridge. The Doctor's words haven't solved the predicament. So I thought that a flesh-and-blood superior would."

She stood up. "Major Silva?"

"Correct." He waved at the Chief and the jump suit appeared on him. He looked down at the green cloth and the blue markings.

"Fine," Samus relented and walked out of the medical bay, John followed behind her.

"Chief, you're in command like me." She said turning to him suddenly when they got to an elevator. "Just because I outrank you doesn't mean that I'm your superior. So you can walk beside me, not behind me, if you want." He nodded and when they got to the level that the bridge was on, he walked next to her and they both walked into the bridge at the same time.

The Chief quickly took in the situation and was angered almost instantly.

"I don't listen to civilians like you, Doctor. And because of their oversight, that means I'm in charge until they wake up, since I have highest rank. So I can talk to the Spartans and treat them in any way that I want to. And I want to treat them like what they are, genetic freaks of nature."

He looked down at Samus and saw that she was speaking up.

"Major, I have a question for you." She said in a tone that was as cold as ice. Silva turned around and jumped as he spotted the insignia on her shoulder. "Are you rebellious?"

"No, sir." He said.

"Then maybe you're stupid?"

"I'm not, sir." He replied.

"Then perhaps you can explain to me something." She was standing straight with her hands behind her back. Her tone had become friendly, but dangerous. "Because I can't figure it out. Earlier when I said that unless I told you otherwise, you were to keep your ignorant and asinine remarks to yourself, what part did you not understand?"

"None of it, sir." He replied after a moment.

"Then was it alright for you to ignore my orders in my absence?"

"No, sir."

"Then why did you do it, _Major_? Be as candid as you want."

"Because I can't stand them!" He exclaimed. "They've been altered and they're not even human anymore. They're some sort of human alien hybrid freaks."

"They're genetic structure, although given some therapy, is exactly that of a human. They're no more alien then yourself. And in the future, I'd suggest that you keep your xenophobic sentiments to yourself. The Federation as very powerful non-human allies that you'd do your best not to anger. Also, the Spartans make excellent allies, the likes I've seen only a few times."

"Yes, sir."

"Until then, how many of your men are left?"

"Twelve, sir."

"Good. Take them and gather them in one of the bunk quarters. You're to stay there until I or the Chief say otherwise."

"Yes, sir." He said and walked out of the room. The Chief watched Silva leave, keeping his anger to himself, the only sign was that his eyes had narrowed very slightly and his lips had become tighter.

Samus looked at the Spartans and then at the Chief. "Sorry if I defended them for you. But I can't stand people like that."

He shrugged.

"Hey," Wil said, "Commander?"

Samus waved her hand, "Samus will do just fine. Or Aran. Or ma'am. Whatever you like. Just don't use my rank, and I'm not a sir."

The Spartans seemed to be taken aback by her order. Wil continued, "So, ma'am, I thought you said that you were a bounty hunter."

"I am. But I'm also part of the military, or at least, they make sure that I've got a rank and a uniform."

"What do you mean?" John asked.

"Space Hunters. Section Three. We're an elite version of commissioned soldiers. There are some strong entrance requirements, but if we meet them, we can sign a contract with the Federation. Originally, the Federation contracted the Space Hunters before regular hunters, but they weren't given military ranks. However, that proved to be a problem in missions with the military involved, so the Space Hunters were given ranks defined by their work. However, no Hunter can go higher then Commander level for security reasons."

"How many are there?"

"Probably fifty. Not a lot want to become a Space Hunter, because it's limiting, and some Bounty Hunters just can't stand the Federation. However, the Federation will always ask a Space Hunter to work first, there's a guaranteed pay, and each hunter can define their rate, so long as its reasonable. We also can be contracted by Federation allies."

"Damn," Samus turned and saw that the commenter was Sergeant Johnson. "Sign me up."

"You don't sign up. The Federation contacts reliable bounty hunters and offers it, or a new bounty hunter can contact the federation and take the test. We also only get missions of the highest order. So, there's generally no back-up and everything either you buy yourself or it's OSP. Because of this, most of them charge ridiculous amounts."

"What do you charge?"

"Private matter, but mine are the lowest out of all Space Hunters, so I get contracted the most. Keeps me busy. Besides," she stopped and then continued, "they know that I hate the Pirates, and that's what most of their jobs revolve around."

"Do you always work alone?"

"Yes, Space Hunters always go in alone because we're still bounty hunters and most are the loner sort. I can't explain why, but if someone wants to be alone, hunting is the best line of work for them."

"I hate to interrupt story-time, Lady. But Admiral McCullough has sent you a high-priority message. He says that he wants to you stop off before continuing to help the Spartans."

"Really, where?" She said with a groan.

"A Space Station. It's sort of on the path that Cortana and I chose. We could stop off."

"Nah. I'll just get dropped off and catch up. What's the parameters and directive?"

"They lost contact with the Station some time ago when a ship crashed into the lower parts, destroying communication between them and the Space Pirates that had taken over the station. They want you to examine it. And," Adam stopped.

"What is it?"

"You're not going to like what follows. This one is like the B.S.L. Station in the Metroid breeding. Also, apparently B.S.L. had gotten a sample of X-Parasite DNA from when you were infected, and there's been breeding there too. You're to do whatever seems necessary to save the remaining scientists and there are two Space Hunters contracted to the job as well. You're to work together."


	53. Chapter 28 Of Hunters

**0523 Hours, September 3, 2552 (Military Calendar)**

**Inside the **_**Migration's**_** bridge**

"What!" Samus exclaimed, her shoulders set. "Are they _insane_?"

"They'll be working under you."

"Good to hear." She muttered angrily. "But that's not it."

"I understand. They shouldn't arrive before you do, however. So you can explain things to them."

"So who am I working with?" She asked, sighing and straightening her shoulders.

"Davey Greggs, and-"

"Stop right there." Samus said, eyes flashing dangerously. "It's like they've set me up for failure."

"Lady?"

"That team, Greggs and Dyson, absolutely cannot stand me. I'm pretty sure that they won't listen to a word that I say."

"I thought you said hunters worked alone."

"Usually. There are a few teams. They're friends and they always work together, splitting the profits. That team used to be three. They were all mule-headed idiots, fresh into being Space Hunters, and wouldn't listen to a word I told them to do. New recruits are always assigned a mentor for their first mission so that they can learn the ropes. That's what I was. Because they wouldn't listen, their third member, Rikson, was killed in an avoidable trap. They blame me for it though. And they're out to avenge their fallen brother."

"That's going to be a problem."

"Yeah. It's weird though, they almost never group Hunters together, mostly because then they have to pay everyone their rate on completion of the job. If they need to ensure that the job gets done with multiple Hunters, they usually contract us for the same mission and whoever finishes the job gets the pay. They also don't understand our dynamics, and they don't want to group Hunters together that get along like water and oil. And they wouldn't do it if they already knew of misgivings between the Hunters." She slammed a fist against the control panel in frustration. "Especially not a mission like this!"

"Lady," Adam began.

"Whatever. When do I get there?" She asked as she straightened up.

"ETA ten minutes."

"Chief, when we stop there, you can move everyone over to the Covenant ship and continue on. I'll catch up in the _Migration_ later." He nodded and she left the bridge without a word. As she walked down the hallway she used her implant to change into her jump suit and then activated her suit. She went down the elevator and got to the troop bays. She found her gunship and hopped on top and jumped through the open hatch. A communication line opened up, she checked the source and found that it was the bridge.

When they got nearer to the drop point, a seven-note song echoed through the speakers. Recognizing it, John furrowed his eyebrows.

"Adam, where is that coming from?"

"It's embedded in a weak signal coming from the station, Chief. I was wondering if you recognized it."

"Do you have a visual on the station?"

"Yes." A display appeared on the main holographic screen. It was a forlorn station that was roughly an elongated diamond with a ring around the middle, attached by large spokes. The station turned around slowly, artificially creating gravity. Floating nearby was a Space Pirate Frigate. On the bottom it was obvious where the crash had occurred. The white metal had been pushed inwards, and it was all a violent scene. He had the display zoom in, and he inhaled, seeing the back of a UNSC ship sticking out of the crash site. "That's not Federation standard, perhaps UNSC?" Adam asked, highlighting the ship.

"Adam, get Samus."

There was a moment before a side panel showed Samus sitting in the pilot seat of her gunner. "Yes, what is it?"

"There are Spartans on there."

"You sure?"

"Yes."

«C'jinlor» She paused. "What do you want to do?"

"I'll be going too."

"Get your ass down here then, Chief. You'll be taking an individual drop ship to pick up any survivors."

The Chief nodded and he ran out of the bridge, sprinted down the hallways and was down in a bay and in a ship with a plasma rifle in a minute. He switched the ship on and got ready to pilot it. It was only a minute before the bay doors opened and he and Samus flew out of the bay towards the station. He followed Samus as she flew towards a bay door in the station. He saw her get her ship close to the station's surface and then get out of her ship, attached herself to the hull and stand near an entry point. He did the same. Soon he was facing her at the access point. She turned her head sharply and he followed her glance. There was a Covenant drop ship pulling in nearby. Kelly got out and stood near them.

"Sorry, sirs. But you did leave me in charge, and I heard the signal coming from the station."

Samus looked over at him and he nodded to her. She stared at Kelly a moment longer before opening up the entry's door with a key code. They all got in and were pulled to the floor via artificial gravity. She closed the entry door and once it sealed, there was the hiss of air rushing into the small room they were in. Samus opened another door, sealed by an energy barrier, and the three walked through.

They saw a group of at lest twenty people in the room, which was a large cargo bay, gathered near the door that opened to space. The barrier was transparent. Samus walked over to them. They looked at her in surprise.

"Who's your leader?" She asked, her voice came out as male with her voice filters.

A middle aged man stood up. He was wearing a lab coat. "I am."

"What's the situation?"

"Pretty bad."

"Of course it is. You bred X-Parasites and Metroids here. They're beyond containment. How on earth did you think you'd handle them?"

"We did have them under control. That is before the Space Pirates came and took control of the station. They killed most of us and took the rest as hostages. It's been hours since they last checked on us." He pointed at a two bodies, "We've had a few incidences of the parasites breaking in. First it was the X, that took him as a host." He pointed at one, "Then a Metroid, which killed the X infected, and then killed her before I could contain it with ice fire."

Samus turned around. "Alright. And then the crash?"

"We supposed that something had happened with the station was shaken violently a while ago."

"No idea what crashed in?"

"No. Nothing sentient has entered this room for at least a day. I have it under lockdown. Except to let you in."

"And us?" A male voice called out. All attention focused on two suited figures in the room. Their armor seemed to resemble that of Old English knights and their bodies weren't quite human. One was taller the other wider.

"You as well." The scientist said. He winced.

"Are you injured?" Samus asked.

"The Pirates broke my ankle."

"Then sit down." She told him and walked over to the newcomers. "Greggs, Dyson, it's been a while." Her voice lacked the strain that she was feeling.

"Who are they?" Said the taller of the two waving at Kelly and John.

"Some military personal working with me on another mission."

"Wait, you're doing two missions at once?" The other said. He was broader.

"The other one's rather long and right now we've got a small break. Thought we'd lend a hand."

"Because you're such an expert in the area, right?"

"That's why they contracted me."

"Gonna blow it up with everyone else on it like you did with the last station?" The taller one asked, his body looked positioned to pounce.

"There was no one left alive and uninfected by the X, Greggs. Rather then let the B.S.L. and the Federation destroy everything by taking X samples from the station, I destroyed it."

"Yeah. Weren't you infected too? So what makes you so special that you could survive and they couldn't?"

"Because I'm not human, Dyson."

"Yeah, but weren't some of the people there not human? Besides, I thought your savior was a _Metroid_ injection."

"It only worked because of what I am. Now cut the crap out. I don't have time to waste, so I'm going to investigate that crash with these two. What you need to do is to make sure that they," She waved at the group of civilians, "get out of here alive. Load them onto your ship. Then," she was loathing to send them out into the major part of the station, "see if you can't find out what happened to the Space Pirates. But be careful. If you kill something X infected, the X will go after you."

"Avoiding killing will be the hardest for you, especially your allies." The shorter one retorted.

She frowned; they hadn't changed in fifteen years. "Do me a favor, will you?"

"What?"

"Grow the hell up. Now get started."


	54. Chapter 28 Of Hunters 2

"Grow the hell up. Now get started." They didn't move for a second, when she started to charge her cannon they started to shift nervously. She raised the gun and sent the blast at them. They didn't move, the blast missed them and hit a Metroid that had gotten in. "Before you boys get yourselves killed by something other then me."

They started to move and waved for the civilians to follow them. "Oh, doctor." Samus said the middle aged man turned towards her. "In your pocket is an ice blaster. Could I have that?" He nodded and pulled out the small handgun. She took it.

"Oh, and Greggs? What are you doing?"

"Getting them out."

"They can't survive the vacuum." The Space Hunters looked between each other. "Just have one of you go out, fetch your ship. Then get them in the airlock. The other will open the bay and then use an umbilical to attach your hatch to the air lock hatch and get them aboard." They nodded and set off to work.

"Hey, Samus?" Dyson called out, unable to restrain himself. "Is it true what I've heard about you? You can eat the X because of that injection?"

She ignored them, waved her hand and led the two Spartans through the door into the station itself.

It was dark, the only light was that of the broken lights that were flickering between dim and dead. There were also conduits that were sparking electricity. Darkness overwhelmed them when the doors to the cargo bay shut behind them.

Samus tossed the handgun that the doctor had given her into the air, and deactivated her suit. As the gun came back down, her blue-gloved hand caught the weapon. She twirled it in the palm of her hand, held it and quickly aimed it. She test fired a shot and twirled it around her finger as she began to walk forward.

John and Kelly looked at each other and then followed Samus. She began to whistle a song. Although they were confused, the Spartans allowed her to continue with her erratic behavior. Samus was nervous. She was keeping her mind calm by keeping her body in a rhythmic motion of walking and keeping her mind preoccupied with the gun. Even more to keep her mind off the nervousness was the old Chozo lullaby that she had heard many times while on Zebes. Even though the tone had calmed her, she could never convince the elders to get someone to sing it for her as a child.

As they continued forward a creature leapt out at them. It was a Space Pirate. Samus ducked down as Kelly and John fired at it. In moments the Pirate was dead. The corpse fell to the ground and a creature that seemed to be made of gel rose from the body. It was a yellow color and half transparent. It floated in the air and then rushed towards John.

In a snap, Samus had gotten in its way, her body shifting from human to that inhuman form John was beginning to recognize, although not understand. She lashed out a hand, and it flew into her, skewering itself on the extended limb. The gel went through her jumpsuit and left only globules of residue on the blue cloth.

She looked back at them.

"Samus?" John questioned. Kelly had instinctively raised her rifle towards the lavender haired woman. He found her sharp green eyes unnerving.

"What is it?" She looked at Kelly while facing the Chief.

"What are you?"

"A reliable Space Hunter with a pretty long reputation for destroying worlds, ships, and stations."

"No, Samus. Stop evading my question. What are you?" He said in a cool and angry tone. It surprised him. He supposed that it was the side effect of the Phazon corruption that Adam had mentioned.

She seemed taken aback. She shook her head. "I don't know. Some human alien hybrid freak seems the best way to put it."

"What do you mean?"

"I'll tell you, but only if you keep walking." Samus promised as she turned around. John looked at Kelly and signed to her to keep her weapon at ready, but to lower it. She followed his orders. They followed her.

"My parents were human. Residents of colony K2-L. After the Pirates attacked it and I was the sole survivor by sheer luck, the Chozo found me and took me with them. They raised me from the age of three. Zebes, their world, was not habitable for humans, they can't adapt to the harsher environments of the world. So to help me survive, because they didn't want the Federation to run tests on me, they infused my body with Chozo DNA structures. That left my genetic structure open and variable to changes, it could adopt more racial DNA and change my race again. All of these mutations of my natural DNA had some interesting side affects, most notably my body structure."

"How was it left open for further mutations?"

"A special chemical infused into my body to give me Chozo DNA. It made it so that my body would accept the Chozo DNA structure into my own genes and then replicate a combination of Chozo and human DNA in selected sequences. The chemical had a sort of permanent affect. Any foreign DNA that enters my body will likewise join my own. Of course, the more mutations, the less stable my body. I can't handle more then two mutations, or three types of DNA."

"That's why when the Flood…"

"Correct." Samus said simply, cutting him off.

"Wait." John said as he noticed a hole in her story. "Would mutations beyond the one you got when you received Chozo DNA cause you as much problems as the Flood was?"

"No. They'd be relatively," she cut off suddenly as though she had realized something.

"So, you've had another mutation in your genetic structure?" Kelly inquired, picking up on it and speaking faster then John could. Samus remained silent.

"Dyson said that you were given a Metroid injection when the X infected you." He trailed off as he thought of something she had said earlier. Metroid were weak against the cold. She had been adverse to the snow on Halo and tried to stray from using her ice beam. Samus had stopped and was staring at him, daring him to continue. "You're body, it…absorbed the Metroid DNA, didn't it?"

Samus turned on her heel and continued walking down the hall. She had apparently closed the matter for discussion, he tried for a minute to get her to answer his question, but she only seemed to get stiffer and refused even more to answer him at all. He was angry, but he let it drop. He realized that she had pride stilling her tongue, and not only that but being part of a parasitic life form unwillingly was something he wouldn't want to own up to.

They continued forwards and saw that the elevator was broken because of the crash.

"Guess it hit some vital electronics." Samus said aloud as she began to look around the area. After a moment her eyes alighted on a cracked section of the wall. She pointed to it. "There, break that. It should lead to a maintenance shaft that we can use." She told them.

After the wall was broken, a horde of flying creatures flew out at them. In seconds the two Spartans had shot them all down. Samus ran around absorbing all of the parasites to prevent them from getting to the Spartans. They went into the hole in the wall that John and Kelly had created. They found themselves faced with a large and winding set of stairs, ledges, and platforms, all nearly coated in X infected creatures. They spent nearly an hour getting down the shaft.

John broke down the exit doorway and they ran out into the hallway. The two Spartans stopped as they saw what awaited them. The floor, walls, and ceiling were crawling with what appeared to be rats. Samus looked back at them.

"If you hear me yell, come and help me, otherwise, find a locked in place to hide." John nodded and he and Kelly went back to the maintenance shaft. He picked up the door he had burst from the lock and held it in place. The lock had been torn out and five dents decorated the door where he had hit it to make it move. There was a creaking sound as the metal rested in place.

Samus pulled the emergency pistol from the holster on her hip and brought it up. When she pulled the trigger, the energy beam formed into a lithe form. She used a dual combination of the plasma laser and her pistol's whip to destroy the creatures. Some were killed, the corpses of others released X parasites which she absorbed. In five minutes she had cleared half the room. In another six the room was clear.

"Okay, c'mon!" She shouted over her shoulder. The two Spartans burst the door down and ran over to her. They walked through the door and into an empty hallway.

The three continued onwards in the dark hallway, and then another one. Samus began to whistle again and twirl the laser again. She had holstered her emergency pistol.

She stopped as they heard the strains of a seven-note tune. She frowned at the tune, as she had just remembered where she had heard it. John didn't noticed, he continued onwards, Kelly following him, with an even greater sense of urgency.

"Hide and seek is over?" Samus questioned aloud as she ran to catch up with the other two. They stopped and looked at her.

"What do you mean?"

"Olly, olly, oxen free. The signal for hide and seek is over and for the game to begin anew." She replied. "That's what you guys use for your signal?"

John was confused at what she had said and how she knew. The AI that had trained them had given them the tune. She had stated that it was no longer used, and had never specified the source of the tune. The fact that it could be a secret signal for the Spartans had been enough for them to adopt the tune. So how did Samus know about it?

"What is hide and seek?" Kelly asked.

"It's a game that children played on K2-L. The goal was to stay hidden and not be found by the person seeking you. If someone was found then the game was over. Generally it would be played again, this time the person that was found was now searching. To signal that the game was over, you'd say, sing, or whistle "olly olly oxen free". It's a simple stealth game."

Kelly and John were likewise confused by her explanation. The place that they had grown in, no one ever played those games. Mostly they played vids or holographic board games. Sometimes they were forced to play recreational games, but that was usually games of extreme strength or speed. Something physical. This didn't sound like any of the games that they had ever played. Until boot camp, when stealth was the goal of certain games. But still, they weren't like hide and seek.

"No marine or any other soldier has ever made note of the tune." John said.

"Then maybe the UNSC children don't play it anymore." Samus replied. "I know in the Federation humans don't play the game anymore. K2-L was a young colony and the founders, my parents and their generation, still had memories of that game. Recent Pirate activity mostly destroyed most games of that nature."

They had been walking as Samus talked, following the echoes of the tune. When Samus had finished speaking, silence reigned over the group. In ten minutes they had found the door that probably led to the crash site. The strength of the noise said that it came from this room, it was blaring from speakers set up on the outside of the door to deliver announcements from the upper part of the station to the lower part. Samus pressed a few buttons on a panel near the large doors and then looked up at them.

"Open vacuum in there." She said.

She looked down at the panel and sighed. She reached down and opened up an electrical panel near ground level. She placed her hand over the circuits and white energy sparked from the palm and raced into panel. Samus typed in commands via the control panel. Eventually the doors began to open. When they were open a meter in width two beings leapt out at John and Kelly. They grappled with the creatures as another figure darted out of the room.


	55. Chapter 29 Of Parasites

**0806 Hours, September 3, 2552 (Military Calendar)**

**Lower Levels of the Space Station**

Samus whipped her hand away from the panel and keyed the door shut. If the bio scan was right, then everyone that had been in there was now out. She was exhausted. The Chozo could manipulate energies well enough, but the task was draining for her. She was just grateful that she had absorbed so much from the parasites.

She moved her head as she began to stand, a bullet from a pistol whizzed past the bridge of her nose. Samus did a back flip and avoided more fire from whatever was targeting her. She landed on her feet and pulled out her emergency pistol. As energy gushed from the muzzle, it took the form of a sword. She used it to deflect some shots with one hand and moved to pick the ice laser from the ground where she had dropped it.

The two figures that had rushed at John and Kelly were trying to kill the two Spartans, the third figure that had run out of the room, and Samus. The three figures were Spartans, however the first two were behaving erratically. Samus stared at them. There was an animosity welling up in her chest was she looked at the two enemies.

"What's going on?" Samus shouted over the din. Without her scanner she couldn't discern that for herself. She didn't have a moment to activate her suit to get her answer, either. She was also concerned that the X had nailed the two Spartans and if that were the case, she would need to keep herself unarmored.

The third figure's shields flared and collapsed as she was hit with a bullet strike. Kelly got in the way and continued to aim at non-vital points. John was doing the same.

"I don't know." The Spartan said in a feminine Spanish accent. "These things attacked Darin and Gwen. They started trying to kill me afterwards." She looked back at Samus who was glowering at the two Spartans. Samus rushed forwards and cut the muzzle off one of the Spartan's gun as they stopped to reload.

"What did they look like?"

"They were green blobs." She responded.

«C'jinlor,» Samus cursed. "They were hit by a variant of the X." Samus explained to John and Kelly.

The Chief paused as he moved in front of Samus to block a string of bullets. "And that means?" He dreaded the answer she was inevitably going to give him.

"They're already dead." Samus said, feeling empathy and pity for the Spartans, the Chief in particular. However, she knew that there was no way to save them. "Those are just shells made by the X."

He felt as though she had struck him with her words, but had already figured what her answer would be. The Chief automatically switched to trying to kill the X infected Gwen and Darin. Kelly followed his example.

Samus joined in, using her pistol as both a beam and a whip. She deflected bullets aimed at her from one soldier while John was directly covering her back as one was on either side. There was a short staccato of rifle fire from his weapon. It reverberated down the hall. He had taken out the shields of the infected soldier. He began to fire to deliver the fatal blow, but the Spartan ducked and rolled out of the way. He followed him with his gun and traced the Spartan's footsteps with bullets.

Kelly was guarding the clean Spartan, who seemed to be taking the situation badly. She fired at the soldier that Samus faced. She broke the shielding of the soldier and it seemed to notice her at that moment. It jumped out of the way of more fire, avoiding Kelly's shots.

The two infected super-humans moved in concert and went for the weakest members of the party: the unarmored Samus and the unarmed soldier. Kelly dropped her weapon to the ground and grabbed the Spartan by his arm. She moved so swiftly that her opponent didn't have the chance to react. She kicked him and threw him into a wall. There was a sizeable dent. Meanwhile, John had gotten in the way of the other one, who was trying to tackle Samus. Samus had begun to move out of the way, but without her suit on, she was slower then the Spartans, although still lightning fast. His weapon was being crushed between his hand and that of the X infected human.

Samus took the opportunity to throw the ice laser at the unarmed Spartan. She grabbed it out of the air and fired at the one that was just getting out of the wall. He was hit and his arm was frozen in place. A second shot froze his leg.

Kelly fired at the Spartan. His shields flared and then died. Kelly continued to fire as the X tried to free itself. The armor was hit by shots of super heated plasma. It melted and he was killed. The body collapsed to the ground and out from it burst a large green X parasite. It floated in the air a moment before jumping into the body that the second X had killed and replicated.

John had thrown the ex-Spartan to the ground and lifted his plasma rifle. The second X joined in just as soon as he had destroyed the shielding. The double infected soldier got up and ran in circles around the group. Kelly lashed out her fist as he came near her. She hit the mirrored visor. The orange surface broke under her blow. The infected human staggered backwards and shook its head, sending shards of the visor skittering around the floor. It opened its eyes, which was one of the most shocking features. The eyes were pure white, there was no iris, nor was there a pupil. Along with that was a skin that was a neon glow of a pale skin. It was startling. Kelly lifted up her rifle and shot it with a plasma bolt in the face. The infected soldier fell to the ground.

A giant spiked orb appeared out of the body. Samus unlocked her pistol from the beam form and began to fire at the orb. She then leapt at the free X from the other Spartan and absorbed it.

John and Kelly fired at the orb. As it took damage, X burst from the orb. It was all Samus could do to absorb them all. Once they had destroyed the orb, the gelatinous floating creature that had been inside began to float around. It seemed to aim at John. Samus jumped into the air and jumped into it. She hung in the air for several long moments as the large X tried to resist her. Eventually she bested it and the X was absorbed into her body.

She collapsed on the ground, heaving and covered in sweat. She was on her hands and knees. However, her body gave out and she fell onto her face. She kept her mouth closed and refused to allow the peals of agony growing within her to escape. It came out as a series of punctuated whimpers. John knelt on the ground next to her and flipped her onto her back. She had her eyes closed, and yet a clear liquid was creeping down the sides of her face. He was taken aback; John hadn't seen anyone cry in a long time, except for civilians when he was on rescue operations. He felt the urge to wipe her tears away, but refrained. Eventually she got up, wincing with every motion she made. She gasped for air and turned to Kelly, who was examining the Spartan that had helped them in the battle.

Her visor was depolarized and completely transparent. Her features were normal. Kelly nodded her head and the visor was instantly polarized.

"I want you, and the other Spartan to leave immediately. Take her to the _Migration_ and then get back to the Covenant ship. Make sure that the X don't get to you."

"Why?" Kelly asked stubbornly.

"It's too dangerous. I can hold my own." She looked at John. "You should leave too. I can finish it up on my own."


	56. Chapter 29 Of Parasites 2

"No." He said. "Kelly and Sevilla are going to leave, but I'm staying."

She looked at him in exasperation. She knew that she couldn't order him to leave as easily as Kelly or the other. She turned back to Kelly, who was looking at John.

"Get going, Kelly." He said dispassionately. "I'm counting on you to make sure that Sevilla gets out of here safely along with yourself."

Kelly seemed surprised. "Yes, sir." She began to lead Sevilla away.

"Wait a moment." Samus said. The two turned. Samus strode over. "The Ice laser. I'm going to need it." She held out her hand. Sevilla took a moment but eventually handed the weapon back to Samus. She pulled out her emergency pistol and held it out. "Take this instead. Don't kill anything."

The Spartan nodded, accepted the weapon, and followed Kelly.

As soon as they were out of earshot, John turned towards Samus. "What. Is. Going. On?" He asked, his voice ground with anger. Samus looked at him and raised an eyebrow.

"I'm afraid I don't understand the question."

That was a start, he thought to himself. She was instantly avoiding him. "I want you to explain to me about the X, the Chozo, and you. What's going on with this station? What was that thing we fought? What did you do with the panel? And what happened just now when you absorbed that creature? And I want answers this time, Samus."

"Fine, but who were those Spartans that crashed into the station?"

He paused and considered if he should answer her question before her explanation. He decided that he would, but he would make sure that she would answer his afterwards. He told her about how when the Spartans had first gone on this "suicide" mission of capturing a Covenant ship to invade Covenant territory, there had been a group of Spartans on battlefields too distant to be recalled for the mission. They were called Gray Team. They had consisted of their leader 098-Sevilla, 003-Darin, and 129-Gwen. Gray Team hadn't been heard from in over a year and was considered to be KIA, although they had been listed as MIA, though it wouldn't have made a difference. At her prompting, he explained that no Spartan was ever listed as KIA; they were always MIA to keep up the illusion that Spartans never died to boost morale of the troops. When he had heard the signal, he had known that it was Gray Team on the station, although he didn't know why they were here.

"Now, answer my questions."

Samus sighed and stared at him. After a moment she realized that he wasn't going to relent in his queries. So she explained everything that he wanted to know and answered some of the other questions he had asked earlier that she hadn't answered.

She told him about the X Parasites. How they infected their hosts, killed them, replicated their bodies and memories, and moved onto other hosts to reproduce. She told him how they were the natural enemies of the Metroids on SR-388 but when she had wiped the world clean of them the X parasite population blossomed without a predator. She explained what the four different colors meant. She told him how on a guard duty for B.S.L. workers she had been infected by an X and nearly killed as her ship crashed into an asteroid when she fell unconscious. How if it hadn't been for immediate action by the Galactic Federation and a vaccination of Metroid DNA that she would have died.

She explained to him that the X parasite infection had fused the biological sections of her power suit and jumpsuit with her body. She explained to him the surgery that the scientists had done separate her suit from X infected sections. That afterwards they had shipped the infected sections of her suit to the station where the parasite had flourished and taken over, killing everything aboard. She told him about how a parasite had actually formed from the sections of her suit and replicated several times creating at least 17 copies of her that she had faced while being weakened from her surgery. That her body had become part Metroid and because of it and her fusion with her suit, she was vulnerable to the cold. However, because of this she could use the X as a food source. But without the fusion to her suit, she was unable to absorb the X while she was inside as quickly as she could without it.

She explained to him about Core X, a conglomeration of X parasites that formed in larger prey. She said that the X ejected from a corpse always carried traits from their host. However, it was only the Core X that when destroyed had altering changes. She explained that most of the time what remained of her suit had gotten the physical changes when she absorbed the Core X after fighting a particularly large enemy. She said that the Core X they had faced carried with it Spartan attributes. Her body was nearly immune to the augmentations absorbing a Core X would give her, however she had been put through pain as the attributes tried to carry over to her body. She explained that she had sent the station into SR-388 and thus killed off all life on the planet along with anything on the station.

She then told him about the Chozo. She explained to him that they were an ancient race. She said that the Chozo were able to sense the deeper emotions of the people around them, the emotions of their conscious and subconscious. That they were able to discern possible thought patterns of those people using what they knew about their behaviors and the emotions. That the more they knew a person, the better their predictions. She explained to him that the Chozo were able to see through the deceptions of language barriers and were able to use and understand any language, sign, verbal, written, or visual, after coming in contact with it and after a while they could use it themselves. She told him that the Chozo and another race called the Luminoth were capable of manipulating energy with their minds. That being in part Chozo, she had been able to use the excess energy that she had gotten from the X parasites to temporarily power a force field through the circuitry so that she could open the doors safely and a bio scan.

She explained to him that this station was another B.S.L. research station, and they had apparently been able to move some of the X here for study. She was unsure how, but she was going to get some answers later on. She also explained to him that the Federation had once gotten a hold of Metroid DNA from a Metroid that she had brought back once because it followed her around like a lost puppy. They had used this DNA for the vaccination, but they had also used it to replicate the Metroid on the station over SR-388, and as a backup, here too apparently. She told him that the Space Pirates had probably heard of this and that was why they had come to the station. However, she suspected that they were very dead at this point, either killed by Metroid or X parasites. She told him that she wanted him to leave for his safety because of the parasites. She could hold her own, but she didn't want anyone else to be in danger. She said that they should find Greggs and Dyson and that he should accompany them off of the station.

"I understand your concern, Samus. But I'm not leaving." He replied once she was finished, nearly ten minutes later. It took him a long time to digest what she had told him, everything that she had said.

She sighed. Her body shook violently, as she lowered her head. "Are you alright?" He asked and put a hand on her shoulder. She nodded and moved on, eyes staring at the ground. He realized that she had refrained from embellishing the story with any extra details about her life, and he only knew as much about her past as he needed to so that he could understand what she had told him. He pondered momentarily on asking for the details, but decided against it. He knew enough.

They walked in silence for several minutes. John reached out after a moment and grabbed Samus's arm. She turned and looked at him.

"Emergency message, calling for help. Greggs and Dyson."

"Any explanation?"

"No. It's brief."

"Lead the way." Samus said and stood to the side, holding her arms out in a signal that she was waiting for him to trace the signal. He had his suit do so and then figured out what was a probable route to the origin. The Chief led the way.

They had to climb up the maintenance shaft, but they eventually made their way in the greatest haste that they could, to the room that Greggs and Dyson were in.


	57. Chapter 30 Of Metroids

**0928 Hours, September 3, 2552 (Military Calendar)**

**Upper Levels of the Space Station**

They entered the room and found out why they had called for help. The two were curled in a corner of the room, fighting back anything that came towards them. There were plenty of Space Pirates and Metroids.

Samus looked back at the door and saw that it had sealed itself automatically. She groaned and turned back to the desperate plight before her.

Samus nodded at John. He lifted up his plasma rifle and fired a blast of ice at a Metroid. The Metroid froze and when Samus hit it with her ice laser, it shattered. The two continued to fight, but one of them, Dyson, called out over his shoulder. Neither of them looked over at the two.

"Took you long enough, buying supplies?" He asked in a typical Hunter fashion.

"Sorry for being late to the party." Samus replied in kind. Her feminine voice caught the two Hunters by surprise. She fired the laser at a Space Pirate. The Chief struck it with a second blast. The Pirate died and fell to the ground as a simple corpse.

"It's alright, you can kill these guys. They're not infected."

"You can tell?"

"Oh yeah." Samus said simply and kept quiet after that. In fact, they all fought in silence for a long time, fighting off wave after wave of Metroid and Pirate. An air vent broke open and a score of Metroids flew into the room. John and Samus made light work of them with the assistance of the other two Hunters. The Chief and she froze them while Greggs and Dyson obliterated them.

Once the room was cleared of Pirate and Metroid alike they stood their panting.

"I wasn't aware that you could fight without your suit, Samus."

"Chozo training doesn't have such neglect in it." She said.

"I wasn't aware you were female."

"I wasn't aware you were still juvenile." She responded. Her eyes flitted over to the air vent. No one but her was facing it, and horror sped through her veins as she saw blue X float into the room. Her gut sunk and she rushed past the two Hunters, pushing them down with her hands. She was barely in time to get in the way of one of the X.

The Chief had watched her motion and saw the X that had floated into the room. He counted thirty. "Greggs, Dyson, get behind me." He ordered. The two immediately rushed for safety behind the Spartan. He was even more daunting then Samus was in full armor. They looked and watched Samus.

He realized that there wasn't much he could do against the X. Except grab the two Hunters and move it if one came over to them. He still instinctively kept his rifle at the ready, although if he had to move, it would be easier with the weapon holstered.

Samus was backed into the corner near them as she moved. He frowned as he heard and saw her body tremble with each X that she absorbed. Then he remembered what she had said while explaining the X Parasites to him. The blue X were ice cold, a strain that had developed to combat the Metroid. He realized that a blue X was still as dangerous to her as they were to him, but for different reasons. A blue X would infect him, but it would freeze her to death. He looked at her lips; they had turned a blue tinge.

The Varia suit modification of her fusion suit had allowed her body to be able to handle the extreme cold of the blue X and some sections of the station, but she was unable to summon her suit. That would mean that she wouldn't be able to absorb as many as she could in a short time span, which would increase the risk of the X moving to them.

He looked down at the pistol in his hands and raised it up at Samus. The two questioned what he was doing. He kept a watch on the X gathering around her, predicted which ones she would move towards and in which way. He factored in the velocity of the weapon and its parabolic motion. Then he fired the rifle. The shot of plasma rushed past the small of Samus's back. A little closer then he had meant, but Linda was famous for trick shots, not him.

He fired the rifle again; this time making it pass by the back of her neck while her hair was swinging. He fired again, just under her legs as she leapt in the air and kicked an X to absorb it. He kept firing the rifle just around Samus, near points that would transfer the heat of the weapon the easiest.

He didn't know what it was doing for her, if anything at all. But it didn't seem to hinder her, so he kept at it. As the number of shots increased, he got better at precisely aiming the weapon around Samus. She seemed to react to his motions and incorporate his shots into her pattern of movement.

When the last X had been absorbed Samus turned toward the Chief. Her skin was almost normal coloration and her lips were only slightly touched by cold. She sniffed as her nose was running. She wrapped her arms around her body and shivered, jumping around to try and warm her body.

"T-thanks. That h-helped. Now get us o-out." She lifted her hand over at a control panel. He moved over and eventually entered the keys in the right order to open the doors.

"G-Greggs, D-Dyson, get back to y-your ship and get y-your pay. I c-an handle it from here."

"Like hell you can." Greggs said. "You're freezing to death because of those things."

"Guess what they say is true, about you being a Metroid." Dyson remarked at the same time.

"G-get out of here, and m-make sure that the hostages are r-returned safely. Y-you'll never get paid unless you d-do so."

They seem resistant to leave. John spoke up. "Are you defying her orders because she's telling you to leave, or because you want to stay?"

The looked at each other. Dyson responded to his question, "Because we owe her for saving us. And we're on this mission together as a team. If she dies, we don't get the pay."

"She won't die. I'll make sure of it," he replied. "Now get out of here so we don't have to worry about saving you again."

In his black MJOLINR standing at seven foot tall and with a plasma rifle that was still glowing from its recent use, he was a frightening figure. Dyson and Greggs looked at each other and left the room as swiftly as they could. He looked down at Samus, who was still shivering.

"Put your suit on." He told her. She shook her head. "It will warm you up." She leaned against a wall in the room. She jumped from it like it was on fire, shivering even more. He realized that it was a material that absorbed warmth, so it always felt cool to the touch. He looked at her and tried to understand why she refused logic.

"What is it, Samus?"

She looked to the side while trying to warm up, and then back at him with a fierce gaze. "I'm not a Metroid, a-and I don't n-need my a-armor." She sneezed, twisting her head to the side.

"No, but you're susceptible to the cold. Your suit will keep you warm." He said slowly, trying to understand why she was saying this.

"I'm don't have to rely on my armor for Metroid weaknesses." She snapped. She had been ignoring her anger at suddenly having a different race forced upon her body once again. She had been hiding her resultant shame at being forced to become what she had been trying to kill her entire life. But it had gone on long enough.

John stood there quietly. Sometimes under high stress marines began to act the same way. But he didn't think she was going to endanger him, his teammates, or the mission with this. He just kept an eye out for more enemies. His posture spoke for him however, asking "So?"

"Metroid are a race that I devoted my entire life to destroying after I found out about them." She said quietly, "The Pirates loved them, and I hated them, it added to our natural animosity. They're parasites. A mistaken experimentation of the Chozo." That surprised John, but he remained silent. "The Chozo wanted them destroyed once they realized that they couldn't contain the creatures properly. Metroid always seek energy, they never get full. The Chozo's sending bioenergy of invasive predators did nothing to quell their insatiable appetites. When the Chozo could no long contain them, it was my duty to destroy them before they destroyed everything with the help of the Pirates. I've spent over fifteen years methodically wiping them out. And now I'm one of them."

He could almost understand her feelings. He likened it to suddenly, after years of fighting the Covenant, being made part Elite, or worse, Grunt.

"I don't even know what I am anymore, or what I'm supposed to do with this Metroid DNA. If I want them to be killed, does that include me?"

He grabbed her arm suddenly. "Samus, you once said that you were the Chozo's ultimate warrior and protector of the galaxy, right?"

"Yeah. They raised me so that I could take over where they had to leave off as they felt they were interfering too much with the course of things technology wise. But now that I'm not what I was when they made me that, I-"

He cut her off. "Then you should continue doing that." Comforting words or even anything slightly friendly was not his talent. Kelly would always speak for him when he couldn't speak up in situations like this. But Kelly wasn't here, and Samus needed to snap out of it. "I would be dead if it wasn't for those Metroid traits of yours. Everyone that faced the X here would be worse then dead without you. So get over it and let's finish this mission."

She blinked a few times. And nodded. "Right. Sorry. Come on. I'm familiar with this type of layout. The control room's this way." He let go of her and followed Samus as she led the way out of the room. They made their way up a level and went into what had the appearance of a bridge. Samus went to the control deck and started to input commands. Her fingers flew over the board.

"Self destruct sequence activated. Three minutes count down engaged."

John looked at her. "You're kidding." She shook her head and ran out of the room. He caught up to her. "It's at least a five minute trip back to the air lock."

She activated her suit for an extra boost in speed. They ran side by side. With ten seconds to spare they made it back to the cargo room. Samus had charged up a super missile. She blasted the control panel; the force field that kept the bay sealed from space disappeared and there was a deafening roar as the oxygen was forced outwards. She continued to run, calling for her ship and the drop ship that John had taken. They appeared just outside of the bay. Samus leapt up and landed on her gunship, activating the magnetic panels on her feet. The Chief followed her example and used the magnetic panels that the Chozo had given his armor to attach himself to the drop ship. They both got into the hatch and into their pilot's seats at the same time. They activated their engines and flew the ships away from the station, rushing towards their individual ships. The Chief to the Covenant cruiser and Samus to the _Migration_. The Pirate ship was caught in the explosive blast of the station. There was no sign of Greggs and Dyson; they had already left to collect their pay.


	58. Chapter 31 Epilogue

Just tying up some loose ends

**1349 Hours, May 5, 2557 (Military Calendar)**

**Corridors of Spartan warship **_**Trireme**_

Kelly walked with purpose through the corridors of a small warship. It was just large enough for seven Spartans and a small group of battle-hardened marines to control, the ODST troopers had gone out with Major Silva several years ago, and killed themselves to take out a vital point in Covenant trade. The ship was a gift from Samus.

After leaving the space station five years ago, she had made a brief stop with the _Migration_. The Covenant Cruiser that they were on at the time, the _Ascendant Justice_, had continued on the path that Cortana and Adam had picked out for them. John, Fred, Linda, and herself hadn't known that she had stopped off until much later on when the _Trireme_ had shown up and Samus had explained everything to them. The _Migration_ was a faster traveler then the _Ascendant Justice_.

They had been able to make their way to the Covenant center, _High Charity_ after several years of moving inwards and destroying their worlds, employing nearly the same tactic that the Covenant had used on the UNSC. During this course, the _Ascendant Justice_ had been destroyed. Near the same time, Samus had shipped the _Migration_ back to the Chozo who had given it to her. The ship was much too large for the people she had available. Instead, her gunship and some other supplies she had taken from the _Migration_ were in one of the five bays of the ship. Various Chozo and Covenant drop ships that Samus and the Spartans had taken were in the others along with all off the ammunition and the weapons that the Chozo of Ulj'koji had given them.

Because of the safety and the ease with which they could wear their suits, most Spartans walked around the ship in the jump suits that the Chozo had given them. They had eventually figured out that the colors had been assigned to their different personalities and dominant traits. Her red and pink signified her speed, but how kind she was. Linda's black and red mean that she was a loner and was dangerous. Fred's blue and brown was for his absolute balance in everything and his endurance. Grace's blue and red meant that she was patient, but dangerous. Wil had orange and brown for his high spirits and his endurance. Isaac was blue and brown for his stability and his endurance.

The _Trireme_ had been ordered at a special shop that only Bounty Hunters knew about. The Federation never paid any attention to it, for the shop was on a lonely asteroid in an almost forgotten district. Never mind the trillions of dollars worth of supplies that it ordered annually. Samus had customized it for the Spartans. It used a combination of Forerunner, Chozo, Covenant, Federation, and UNSC technology. The weapon systems were destructive, its shielding near impenetrable and there were so many aspects that Kelly and the other Spartans loved about the _Trireme_ that they were going to be unwilling to part with it after the war. Samus had even given it a name after Spartan warships of old.

There was one feature that she didn't like about the ship, and it was no fault of its own. Samus had designed the ship to hold only a hundred people. In the designs there were three large group quarters capable of holding fifteen to twenty people. There were ten single quarters, six double, and six triple. Kelly was heading towards one of the double quarters. The Marines and the Spartans stayed in the group quarters. Only Samus had initially taken a quarter by herself. But then almost a week after getting the _Trireme_, the Chief had moved into a double quarter, by himself. It was as far from the group quarter of the Spartans that he could get. That had been three years ago. The Spartans had been initially surprised by this, Spartans always lived and stayed in groups when they could. Even though Sevilla had been killed two years ago, he hadn't moved back with them. She wondered if he was all right. His behavior had become increasingly odd since the incident on Halo.

Of course, it was a wonder that any of the Spartans were able to handle things normally since Halo. She remembered how painful it had been to watch Edmund be infected. A combat form had killed his shields and an infection form had gotten to him. The process had taken only thirty seconds with loud in livid screams, coming from a Spartan. Kelly could only imagine how much pain it caused. She had watched the infection form squeeze through the hole it had made in the neck of his armor and his skin. She had almost succumbed to the same fate, but she had managed to start using her weapon on the other Flood in the area and begun to back track. She had been required to kill him. The other survivors had gone through similar experiences. Some watched their fellow Spartans, whom they had known since they were seven, be killed by the Metroid. Most had been taken by the Flood, or Flood infected Metroids. From what she had gotten from Grace and Isaac, that process was more then horrifying. And then there was the X, which had forced her to kill Gwen and Darin, two old allies that she had been excited to think that they were alive after years of not hearing from them. Even Wil, who made light of almost everything, had never even so much as spoken about it. Fred and Linda had watched more Flood infections then anyone.

Kelly shook the thoughts from her mind. They were on their way to the center of Covenant life, _High Charity_. She had no time to think about the Flood. What she needed to do now was figure out what had happened to the Chief. She stopped in front of the doors to his quarters and raised a hand to press a button that would alert him to her presence. But she stopped and listened in. She heard Samus speaking.

"...the effects were pretty expansive, John. You probably haven't figured out everything that it did to you yet." Samus had never, as far as Kelly could remember, ever called him John. Doctor Hasley and the other Spartans had called him that so many times that some of the Marines referred to him as that in private, but Samus never used the name. She had always called him Chief.

There was a muttered response to what she said, Kelly didn't understand it. "Sorry, but I can't." She replied afterwards.

Kelly pressed the button and heard a weary, "Come in," a second later.

The door opened and she darted inside and looked for him as fast as she could. He was sitting on a bed in the far end of the room. His elbows were on his knees and his head was just lifting out of his hands, where he had been massaging his temples. Kelly was surprised by how weak he looked. But then he stood up and fixed his facial features to that of military neutrality. She had come in before he had had the chance to do so because of her speed, and she almost regretted it. Samus was leaning against a wall near the head of the bed and had her arms crossed. She looked over at Kelly. While the Chief stood up, Kelly examined the room. It was undecorated and plain. There wasn't even a chair. Just two beds, one of them made for sleeping the other only had a mattress.

"Kelly," he said. "What is it?"

"I was just wondering, sir. Is there something wrong?" John had green and blue. It meant that he was very lucky and stable. And before Halo and mostly during it he had been. But now she wondered about the accuracy of the blue.

He looked at her. "What do you mean?" He had also become as dodgy about this question as Samus was about her entire being. That concerned her as well; normally Spartans didn't keep secrets from each other. She understood that as her superior he had to remain aloof, but the distance he put between himself and the Spartans was beginning to try their trust of him.

"Sir," she said undaunted by his strategy, "with all due respect, you've been acting odd since Halo. Wil thinks that its that bio weapon that Doctor Hasley said you were hit with towards the end, but I'm not so sure that a weapon could have done so much to you."

He remained silent. She could see emotion straining to break loose within him, it showed in the twitching of his facial muscles.

"We're concerned, sir. You keep yourself as far from us as possible. But that's not how Mendez nor you told us how we should act like."

"And you want to know why." He said simply more then he asked her. Kelly nodded. He looked over at Samus, who was refusing to look at either of them by staring at the far all to her left. He sat down again, something that Spartans generally didn't do. He had always shown an aversion to sitting down, even when asked to or he had been standing for hours. Kelly was relieved, it meant that he wasn't going to reprimand her and send her away like he usually did. He waved at the second bed in the room. "Sit down." She did.

"I'm not sure that I can answer your question, Kelly. I don't know what happened myself really." He said after a moment.

"What do you know, sir?" Kelly inquired.

"Phazon. I don't know how or why, but some Phazon got through my suit and into me."

A memory floated unbidden into her head. She remembered what Samus had said once, about Phazon Corruption. She instantly tensed, "You're corrupted?" She barely dared to breath.

"Was." John corrected her, "Adam managed to remove the Phazon from my body with Chozo medical technology afterward we left Halo."

Kelly scrutinized him. Her eyes were focused directly on his. "So that's why you had to go back to the _Migration_. Are you sure that he removed it all, sir?"

"The effects of corruption on the mind are irreversible." Samus said. "And sometimes the changes are unnoticeable for years afterwards. At least they can't get worse with the Phazon removed."

Kelly blinked. Samus had been talking with him about this before she came in. She stood. "Sir, why didn't you let the rest of us know?"

"I don't know." He said ruefully. He bent forward, resting his forearms on his legs. "I guess that it doesn't make much sense."

"No it doesn't, sir. Your behavior concerns us, and with you separating yourself from us, we're worried even more about you."

"All of you?"

"Yes, sir."

He chuckled slightly. "All right." He got up. "You win, Kelly. I'll let the rest of them know. And I'll go back to the group quarters. You go now, I'll catch up with you."

"Yes, sir." Kelly said. She turned and left the room.

The Chief turned towards Samus. That strange and uncomfortable feeling he had always gotten around her had only strengthened over time, despite his best efforts to ward it away. Now was no exception. He felt almost nauseous. "You sure about this?"

"Yeah. You've got the ship, and some upgrades to your suits again. You've got Chozo translators, Forerunner shielding, scanning units and some human tinkering by the Doctor and Cortana. Your armor is no longer UNSC make. It's the best armor out there," She flashed a quick smile, "well next to mine." Then she winked, "Though I think it's up there. Obviously, yours and Kelly's armors are above the rest. There are also some Luminoth weapons in the racks; they rely on your power generators and are infinite. They also have their super attacks, which have a certain amount of time before you can use them again. I had Adam and Cortana shake up the Covenant with some news casts about their prophets. I've given your group the best chance that I can. If you're not alright without me, then I can't help much."

"Thanks, Samus." She had paid for almost everything out of her own pockets. Doctor Hasley had been blown away by the figures she had squeezed out of Samus. The cost of everything she had given them was almost that of all the money every spent on the Spartans. She had made sure that the _Trireme_ was capable of fixing and upgrading their suits with Cortana's help. The two AIs had been sharing the _Trireme_ ever since the warship had appeared. It was only luck that had caused John to pull Cortana's chip out of the _Ascendant Justice_. "You'll be taking Adam, won't you?"

"Correct. And I'm leaving immediately."

He nodded. She reached out and lightly tapped his right pectoral with her fist. "Now you've got some explaining to do for your men." He nodded. She turned to leave. He didn't want her to. Over time, she had grown to be a part of his Spartans to him.

"Wait, Samus." He called out as he moved to catch up to her. She turned to him as he came up abreast of her. "Be careful, alright. No more near infections this time."

She laughed. "I will be," She said with a quick smile. "You too, alright? The Covenant aren't easy." He nodded. He understood her reasoning for leaving. She had gotten permission to leave High Charity to the Spartans only recently. Samus had said that she had been on the mission too long, but he knew her real reason. She wanted to destroy the other ring worlds that the Forerunner had built. They were all filled with Flood. The Federation had told her that she might not get paid for the mission if she left early. She had said that it was alright with her. She had enough money.

He decided that he would see her out of the _Trireme_ before going back to the Spartans. She had put all of the Oculi that she had taken from the _Migration_ into it. There were forty-two of them in total. He watched her ship leave through a plexi-glass window and turned to go talk to the Spartans.

**0645 Hours, June 14, 2559 (Military Calendar)**

**Debriefing room of Spartan warship **_**Trireme**_**, in holding around High Charity**

"Do you understand the objective, Spartan?"

"Yes, sir." The Chief replied.

"Very well, I'll leave everything up to you. Remember, this is a request by the Federation, so don't screw it up."

"Did I mess this objective up, sir?" He asked with cold anger ground into his voice.

"No, you didn't. You never do." With that the transmission ended.

The Chief settled back into his stance. He had been able to mostly control the effects of the corruption, but some things, like anger, were hard to contain. He thought about the past two years. Samus had left hours before they reached _High Charity_.

They had been here for two years. Cortana's and Adam's stratagem had worked. The message they had sent about the Prophets, the lies they had told about their own agendas had started to divide the Covenant. The first several had been vague, but once Cortana had been able to hack the system and find out more about hidden transmissions of the Prophets, she had been more clear, and more damning to the Covenant as a whole. The best part was, he reflected, that Cortana had only used the truth. The Prophets' own corruption had led to their downfall.

The Covenant had been divided into factions. One side was led by the Elites and consisted of Grunts and Hunters, the other was led by the Prophets and consisted of the Brutes and the Jackals. Eventually they had been able to kill the jackals with the help of the Elites, Grunts, and Hunters. The Brutes were eventually forced away from their position of defending the Prophets by the words of their most highly prized artifact of the Forerunner. A being known as the Oracle. It was a powerful super computer that Cortana had been able to access once the Spartans had reactivated it. Using the speakers all over High Charity, she had gotten the Oracle to announce that the Prophets had broken their own laws.

According to the Oracle, the humans were the living remnants of the Forerunner. They were Reclaimers. Destroying them was a sin, according to Covenant culture. This had enraged the Brutes and they joined in the fight against the Prophets. The Chief wasn't sure how this would turn out in the end. But he had just been told by the UNSC that he was to leave High Charity, and take the Spartans with him. The Federation was going to be coming in and taking care of everything from here on out. The UNSC and Federation had been able to help each other immensely. They had improved and used each other's technology to the point where they were nearly on par with their enemy races.

He called in the Spartans. They were battle weary, but none had been killed, and he was going to make sure that they stayed that way. They filed into the room. When all six of them were gathered in front of him he began.

"I just received orders that we're to pull out of this front, the Federation troops will take care of it from here. Our next missive is to go to the help the Federation with the Space Pirates. They've assigned several Space Hunters to help us."

"Did they say how many?" Grace asked. They had gotten temporary aid from other Space Hunters while on High Charity. But none had been as affable or honorable as Samus. They had barely said more then three words, were rebellious, refused to work with the Spartans, and left as soon as they could. None of the Spartans had liked the Space Hunters they were forced to work with. There was the general consensus that the ODST had been better allies then the Hunters.

"Yes. Three. I was warned that they're a little unusual."

"Hey if "unusual" in applied to Space Hunters, then maybe they'll be tolerable." Wil remarked. There were a few grins; Samus was consistently described as the weirdest Space Hunter that existed.

"Very true," Jon replied, hiding a grin himself. He was wearing his armor. The others were too, but he could tell that Wil's comment had amused them a little. "Cortana, are the marines on board?"

Her hologram appeared in the center of the room. "Yes. Shall I take the ship out of orbit and leave?"

"Yes."

"ETA ten hours to nearest Pirate outpost." Cortana said calmly as she disappeared. The engines of the ship were of Chozo design, which meant that they were faster then anything else that was known to be out there.


	59. Chapter 31 Epilogue 2

**2130 Hours, September 3, 2562 (Military Calendar)**

**UNSC Headquarters, Earth****β**

John waited with his Spartans anxiously before a debriefing room. They had just returned from fighting the Pirates a week ago. They had destroyed the central nervous system of the Pirates, and he had personally killed Ridley. They were in their dress uniforms, the decorations her in greatest number on his chest, but the others had a prolific number themselves. Each of them had a purple heart as their first. None of them cared about the pins. They were pieces of cloth or plastic that was supposed to represent sacrifice and pain. But they were nothing, not even near enough to make up for what they had lost. There was nothing that could, he surmised. And he needed no reward for completing his duty to mankind.

Gathered nearby was a group of three Marines, kept in line by Sergeant Johnson. He had grown to respect and trust the Marine over the years of fighting. He had lost a lot of his men, but he had always kept fighting. Doctor Hasley was also nearby.

He had been surprised when he came to Earth, it was his first time. And he had been warned that the universal merging had some strange effects on planets. Though he hadn't expected to see two Earths, each at opposite ends of their orbits. It had been disconcerting. The names to the planets had been hard to decide. But eventually the one that he was on right now had been decidedly named Earth Beta. The other was Earth Alpha. He didn't understand the reasoning behind the names, and nor did he care. When he had first come to Earth, he had asked Cortana to search around for signs of Samus. However, it seemed that once she had left them on High Charity, she had dropped off the face of the universe.

Though that wasn't what was making him nervous. Over the past three years, the Federation had been able to help the Covenant fix their government. The Covenant was an alien body that was separate from the UNSC and the Federation, but they had signed a treaty of sorts. The Pirates had been wiped out, and there were no more Metroids in the galaxy, nor Flood if Samus had done what she had left to do. That meant that there was going to be peace. The Federation had even helped the UNSC deal with the problems in their structure that had led to the outer colony revolt, which was the problem that the Spartans had been created to solve. He was worried about what this debriefing would mean. What was going to happen to the Spartans now that they were no longer needed?

As these thoughts circulated his head, the doors opened. He looked at who came out and immediately went to attention. The person was one of the Section Three admirals, part of the core leaders in the UNSC. She looked over the group and frowned.

"There should be three more." She said aloud. "At ease. We will wait until they arrive."

A minute later the door opened and two people walked in. They stood framed in the doorway, the lighting outside was brighter then in the room they sat in. John looked over and his eyes adjusted to the light. The doors slid shut behind them with a hiss.

One them was a woman, the other was a man. She had long blonde hair that had been put up into a series of knots. She wore a dress uniform belonging to a Commander. The other had a uniform ranked with Lieutenant Commander. Two were abnormally tall, the other looked like a regular person. He recognized one as a friend, the other as a lost ally, and the other his old instructor. Conscientious of the Admiral's presence, he remained still.

"You're late," she said coldly.

"Sorry. But your security stations wouldn't recognize my ID." The woman said. Her dress uniform was devoid of any decorations. "I couldn't get in until they helped me. And it still took a little convincing."

"Very well. Now that everyone is here, we should begin." She opened the door behind her and went into a black room. They all followed the Admiral. They found that there were fifteen seats with spot lights accenting them. John knew that this was to keep the gathered leaders veiled by darkness. But his eyes were able to pick them all out. The admiral was seated at the end of the table. There were five others.

"Please be seated," said one of the men in the middle of the arrangement.

They all sat down at the same time. To his right was Kelly and to his left was Samus. The Spartans sat in a line that went from him, Kelly, Fred, Linda, Isaac, Grace, and Wil. Then there were the Marines, Johnson sat next to Wil. Next to Samus were the men, the tallest seated directly next to her, and then the Doctor next to the other. Next to the Doctor appeared Cortana's hologram and behind Samus was Adam's.

It was an hour-long process to question Samus about her whereabouts and what she had done over the past five years. They eventually found out that she had destroyed the other six installations using the Oculi gathered in clusters of six on one ring, and then detonating them. She had then taken a Slipspace ride from a Forerunner artifact to the Ark. Therein she had destroyed that with the six remaining Oculi. She had barely made the ride back to where she had been.

Over the course of the next five hours they questioned everyone else there about their doings and reviewed mission logs, statements, and recordings. They spent a long time interrogating the Chief about his Phazon corruption. When they got to the man they glazed over his questioning. Then they refocused on Samus.

"According to data logs from the Spartans, you gave them the warship _Trireme_."

"That's correct."

"Why did you give them a ship that cost a four million dollars, and how did you afford it?"

"Because I figured that they were going to need something small, but battle capable when they made it to the Covenant center. Instead of one large cruiser and a bulky frigate. I can afford it because such a thing is covered by the pay I earn as a Space Hunter."

"Yes, according to figures that the Federation provided us with, you could easily afford three of those."

"Actually, that one was a little taxing. I spend a lot of money having to get my gunship rebuilt or upgraded. At the time I could only afford one and a half, and I have no reason to believe otherwise, unless a few payments came in while I was gone."

"Very well. Samus, you are aware that the Pirates are destroyed."

"Yep. Found out from your question and answer session about our goingsons."

"What do you plan do to now? You made it very clear to the Federation that you would only be a Space Hunter until Ridley and all the Pirates were killed."

"Find a decently calm world new colony world, and retire from being an elite Space Hunter. I'm done fighting for my life and limb."

"I see. Now then, Doctor Hasley, about your concern for the fates of the Spartans."

"Yes?" She asked.

"We've decided that we no longer need them in the ranks of the military. Especially considering the questions now being asked about them. However, given their status and their reputation, we'll let Spartan-117 decide their fate."

John was caught off guard. "Right now?"

"Preferably."

He took a moment and looked down the row of chairs at the Spartans. They were watching him, waiting for what he would say. They all had the same concerns as he did. Adam leaned down and whispered something to him. He looked over at Samus, "If you'd allow it, sirs, we'll be the militia of a colony world of our choosing." The military was the only thing that he knew. He had only learned about warfare. The same went for the rest of the Spartans. But at the same time, he wanted them to be safe, protecting people on a low-risk basis. He glanced at the Spartans, they all seemed to approve of the choice.

There was silence for several seconds after he spoke. "Very well. What will your Marines do, Sergeant?"

"I ain't the only one with the same opinion, it seems. I like helping people, but I'd like to retire myself know that humanity's safe an' all. I don't know about my men though, you'll have to ask them. Maybe you could just corral us all on the same colony world."

Each of the Marines voiced the same opinions of the Spartans, Samus, and Johnson. "Doctor Hasley?"

"I'm old. I want to live the rest of my life in peace, actually being a doctor, saving lives."

"Lieutenant Commander Ambrose?"

The man that had been silent for the entire meeting except for the few questions that he had been asked, spoke up. "What will you do with the Spartan III's?"

"They're young. But they will have the same questions asked about them as the Spartan-II's. Whatever fate you decide for them will be put into place."

"I want them to come with me."

"And where will you go?"

He pointed at the Spartans. "With them." There was more silence. One of them joked.

"The staff sergeant's suggestion is becoming more feasible with each person. What about you, Senior Chief Petty Officer Mendez?"

He grunted. "What the hell. Put us all together."

"Very well. We will consider your requests."

"Hey," Samus said affronted, "I'm not UNSC, I'm Federation."

"We will tell them of what you said and garner their opinion. You may leave now."

The fifteen of them got up and left the room in two lines. Once they were outside The Spartans gathered around the Lieutenant Commander and Mendez.

"Kurt." Kelly said first. "You're alive."

He nodded, "It was a plan by Colonel Ackerson to remove me from the rest of you."

"What was that plan, Kurt?" Hasley inquired.

"I don't think that I can tell you right now."

It was John who spoke next. "Spartan III's?"

Kurt smiled. "John. It's good to see you. Next generation of Spartans that I and Mendez trained." Every Spartan in the group did the math, came up with four, and kept silent about their conclusions. John looked at Mendez, every Spartan had at first hated this man, but they all had learned a deep abiding respect for him. It was that respect that almost made John forget that he outranked Mendez.

The SCPO looked at the group of Spartans. "You're all that's left?" He asked as he counted the seven of them.

"The rest were killed." He replied dryly.

"Considering, that's pretty damn good." He thumbed over at Samus who was leaning against a wall, her arms crossed. "Who's she?"

"A friend." John said firmly. It had been five years of intense fighting, but the feeling had not been forgotten, unlike he had hoped that it would be. However, he was able to subdue its affects on him. That was something he had learned, controlling the effects of the Phazon corruption.

**0607 Hours, July 7, 2563 (Military Calendar)**

**Federation colony world J-5B**

It was early dawn when he awoke. He looked at himself in a mirror. His skin had gained some color since he had moved to this world, and his freckles had become more prominent on his face. His hair was still military regulation length. He looked over at a securely closed closet that ate up most of the space in the small room. In it was his armor. He hadn't donned it in months.

He looked back at his face. It looked like that of a thirty year old, even though he was in his fifties. Samus had explained to him that the augmentation process had stopped their aging process after a certain point. It kept them in shape. Samus had explained that though their body's had stopped aging, the augmentations would probably cause their bodies to give out sooner then that of a normal human. She said that the transfection of other race's DNA into her own had much the same impact on her.

He then went out of the room and found his fellow Spartans. Each of them had gained some color, but all of them had kept their hair short. Without a word they started their morning calisthenics. They were doing this so that they kept their muscle tone. It would be an hour until they returned from their morning sprint. With hundred kilo packs. It was the only way that would actually keep them in shape.

They had been here for a week. Samus joined them every other morning halfway through their sprint. This morning she wasn't there, but she had been yesterday, and would be tomorrow. That certainty was unnerving at first, but he knew that he and the Spartans would adapt to a routine that didn't involve fighting for their life every day.

Kurt and the Spartan III's were among the ranks that John led through plains, fields, and craggy hillsides. When they had first come to this world, Kurt had dropped his rank of Lieutenant Commander and joined the rest of the Spartan II's as a Senior Chief Petty Officer. The Spartan III's were Petty Officers of the Third Class. The only one that had complete authority was John, since he was a Master Chief Petty Officer. Samus retained her ranking as Commander, but she had ordered them not to pay any attention at all to her rank.

While he had been able to hide his confused feelings for Samus from every one of the Spartans, Mendez had picked up on it almost the moment he had told Mendez that she was a friend. It had been with a laugh and a groan that his instructor had explained to him what he was feeling. When he had found out about the Phazon Corruption, he said that it made sense. Of course, he wasn't told what to do with his feelings, so he did with them what he had been trained to do with almost anything that wasn't life threatening and he didn't know what do with. Ignore them.

Mendez had taken to training new recruits into the militia. The class wasn't that large, which meant that none of them had a chance of escaping his dark eyes. Hasley was the doctor of the colony, she took care of all injuries. The _Trireme_ was her office, she made use of the Chozo technology to fulfill her role.

Samus had taken up her retirement in isolation on the edge of a small forest near the center of the colony. There was only one city on the colony so far, it was new. But John knew that it would expand over time. Adam and Cortana were the AIs that took care of everything and made sure that everything went smoothly.

The Spartans had one large building. All of their rooms were grouped together, the building had been built with walls thin enough and with the rooms in a circle so that at any time they could talk with each other through walls or closed doors. He liked the design. Each room had a safe that was securely closed, hiding their armor. Even the Spartan III's had safes for their SPI armor, and were in the same area as the older Spartans.

John was surprised by the Spartan III's and how green they were. But he remembered that at one point he had been in their shoes. He let Kurt do with them as he wanted, and sometimes he joined in to help with their training. Some of the Spartan II's also joined in to help the Spartan III's.

After the sprint he left the group in the large house that had been custom built for them. He jogged the three kilometers it would take to get to Samus's lone house. He knew where it was and he decided that he wanted to spend some time talking with her now that he actually had leisure time. And maybe, maybe, he could figure out what to do with his emotions.

John came around the bend in the road that led him along a narrow trail to Samus's house. He had never seen it before and he was surprised by how simply it was. The walls were made of wood and white washed. The roof had shingles and was red. The windows had shutters that had been painted red and orange curtains. There was a swinging bench on the porch where Samus was currently seated. She lay with her back against one of the arms, feet looped through the other, and a book that she was reading lay in her lap. John went to the stairs that led up to the porch.

"Samus." He called out. She looked up at him, closing the book.

"Yes?"

_**To Begin Normality – Author's comments**_

OMG! That took so long to write. And read, I'll wager. The ending was always changing since I started several years back. In the beta idea running around in my head, that accompanied the original beginning of the story, which by the way is much altered now, involved John and Samus eventually living together. Which also involved the other Spartans being dead. Which was also before I read Ghosts of Onyx and hated the fate of Kelly, Fred, Linda, and most especially Kurt. And another thousand alsos that involved this occurring right after Halo: Combat Evolved, and Chief being the last Spartan.

We can see how that turned out. There are so many changes from the original line of thought. As I stated in the beginning, nearly two years ago, "There might be the most negligible hints of Samus Aran and John 117 romance at the end." And there most certainly are, but not so negligible. As I became more educated about the Spartans, I discovered that if there was to be any interest on John's part, there would have to be something to help the emotion break loose of his training. Metroid Prime 3 inspired Phazon corruption as a good excuse. Samus's was written more subtlety, I think. Not sure. Did you even pick up on it?

As for the open ending, I didn't want to say how their lives turned out. I just wanted the circumstances of how they spent the rest of their lives to be mentioned. And from there, you the reader, are able to decide what happens to them.

Although, here's my story: Samus was right about their shorter lives, and they all died out at various points in the year 2570. What they did in those ten years, that's for you to decide.

Now then, if you want to hear about my thoughts of Samus's past, please go to the next chapter: Lost Chapter. If you don't care, don't read. But check out 33 Ending.

With eternal love for the Chief and Samus:

DIGI!

And I leave you with this quote:

_Ah, I am a genius._


	60. Chapter 32 Lost Chapter

A Japanese woman rested in the command chair of a ship. Her orange helmet rested on the floor of the ship, green visor pressed against the surface. It was a precarious position for the helm, but she didn't care. Her feet rested on the ledge of the control panel that had no controls.

She stared idly at the screen telling her the current coordinates of the ship. Her bored blue eyes traveled the line and looked at all the planets that they came near. The Federation was after her, and she didn't particularly feel like "talking" with them. As if they were going to "talk": she would be arrested, fined, ridiculed, and investigated thoroughly.

The fines weren't a problem. Her high profile as an elite Space Hunter gained her exuberant fees and a near god status. There was no way they could ridicule her properly, Samus kept to herself, not many people even knew what her face looked like and could attach it to her. Still, being arrested and investigated didn't sit too well with her. This wasn't the first time she had disobeyed her direct orders. But this was her most major break and she didn't know what exactly would happen if they found out about the other times.

Her eyes rested on the blinking name of one of the planets, "Adam?" she called out weakly. The name struck a bell and she was curious about it.

"Yes, Lady?" The synthesized computer's voice asked.

"That is colony K-2L...right?" She rested a metal plated finger on the planet that had initially caught her attention.

"Yes, Lady. After the space pirates attacked it was abandoned for several years. Then an exploratory science team found massive untouched amounts of the Afloralitite crystal that the colony had been originally founded for. Since then the Federation has been rebuilding the colony, however I think that when we run within five AU's of the colony that there won't be enough security to detect us as a possible threat."

Samus sighed and leaned her head back, "Thank you, Adam."

"You're welcome, Lady." The AI paused before continuing, "Is there something wrong with K-2L, Lady?"

"No. Nothing of importance." Samus leaned her head back and felt it hit the back of the stiff chair that was barely supporting her weight of half a ton in the armor. She closed her eyes and thought back to when she was three, back on K-2L.

* * *

A young girl, human Japanese, only about three chased after a small rabbit looking creature. Her unruly short blonde hair only became wilder in the miniature breeze she created.

"Come back, Ponchi!" She finally caught up with the critter. It turned to face her and pawed at her outstretched hands playfully. The young girl giggled. "Ponchi! That tickles." She picked it up in her arms, not an easy task, it was easily seventy percent her size and cradled it near her. Suddenly a flash of warmth and a loud noise caught the young girl's attention.

She looked questioningly over her shoulder. And she saw it. A large mushroom cloud, almost like a nuclear explosion. "Hm?" She made the sound as her eyes widened in shock and her brows knitted in confusion.

She only had a brief second to wonder as the blast came at her with a frightening speed. Suddenly it overcame her and she was thrown harshly the ground, the dust and smoke making it hard to breath. She closed her eyes and screamed, holding Ponchi closer, but not even Ponchi could hear her over the deafening roar of the blast.

She passed out from the force. A minute later she came to. Ponchi nestled against her, trembling in fear. Then she realized that she was too. She picked up Ponchi, both of them covered in dust. She held him closely and walked through the forest. She knew the way to where she was going. The blast had come from her town, the only place the humans lived on this planet. Tears formed, her mom and dad were in the town. Were they okay?

She upped her pace to a sprint, going as fast as she could. It took her ten minutes to run there, she panted, out of breath. She held Ponchi closer to her as she broke through the line of trees to the city. She was on the landing pad for ships coming to the planet. She stifled a sob and walked through the smoke.

"Papa, Mama wherewhere are you?" She thought she saw something through the smoke so she quickly walked through. However, what greeted her was _not _her mom, or dad. It was something different altogether.

It turned to look at her, blue taught skin, it was a dragon with a lanky neck, two horns at the top of its head, and gleaming yellow green eyes. She stopped, the bunny pressed its head into her, curling up even more, this creature scared the both of them. She stopped and gasped. She could hear groans of pain and screams of terror from the smoke on the opposite side of the pad. There were tears welled in her eyes, but the shock kept them from falling.

The dragon sat on its haunches, wings folded behind it, tail curled around it. Something caught its attention, an alien walked up to him, it was clad in armor and had the same glowing eyes and pincers.

"Sir Ridley, we've captured their bases. We're boarding the ship now."

The dragon nodded, one glowing eye on the Space Pirate, the other on the girl. "Good." The alien left.

"You're R-Ridley?" The young child was finally able to speak from her fear. The dragon stared at her, unable to believe such a young kid could speak so fluently "I-I'm Samus, three years old." She shook, she had Ridley's full attention, she was very much afraid of this creature before her, "Ridley, I'm not scared...It'll all be okay...Even though we look different...we're friends right?"

Samus was only three and very naïve. She was a child. However, Ridley was definitely not her friend, and had no intentions of being her friend. He had ordered the explosion and was not in the least bit interested in this human child, he hated humans with a passion.

Ridley offered Samus a withering look, like he couldn't believe what she was saying. "Hm. We can't have a cute girl around," He said slowly. Then he roared, "We just can't!" The girl froze up, his words had such...spite behind them.

"How come...?" She said, her voice indicated that she would have been pouting.

Ridley didn't bother answering her. "Time for you to disappear!" He turned to face her with a frightening speed and raised his clawed hands at her.

Samus screamed again, and took a step backwards before being paralyzed with fear. A young woman ran out of the smoke a moment later. "Samus!?" She cried, looking at the young girl, her daughter.

"Ah...mama!" Samus wanted to run to her, but for some reason she couldn't.

"We will take that Afloralitite reserve! Everything will burn!" Ridley shot a burst of superheated energy from his mouth, right at the highly explosive reserve of crystals. The energy came closest to Samus's mom, she had only time to scream before the rush of heat killed her.

"Mama!" Samus cried, and fell to her knees. Tears poured down her face as she held Ponchi to her. Ridley continued his blast for a full minute. The heat knocked her out, but didn't kill her, she was too far for that. His ship suddenly exploding was the only thing that stopped Ridley. "What? Why's my ship burning?" He looked over at the explosion was the ball of heated flames came towards him. "Is this some sort of joke?!" Was the only thing he could ask as the blast hit him and instantly incinerated him. He created a shadow on the ground from the atomic bomb like blast. That shadow saved Samus from death.

* * *

Samus opened her eyes with a snap and shook her head. She shouldn't have thought of that day. She had been so young and naive, asking Ridley to be her friend. The corner of her mouth twitched in anger thinking about the Pirate Commander. He was mortal enemy number one. Definitely foe, and not friend. She shoved the thought from her head, there was no use in thinking about the past.

After a moment she spoke, "Hey, Adam, do you know what happened on K-2L that day?"

The AI took a moment to respond, "A pirate force invaded the colony and killed all the civilians. A Choujin-zoku ship landed on the planet, responding to the planet's S.O.S. They sent out a report of what happened and then left for their home world for reasons unknown to the Federation."

Samus frowned, displeased with the answer. "Didn't I tell you, Adam?"

"Tell me what, Lady?"

"The reason the Choujin left so suddenly...that was me. They found me alive with everyone else dead and took me with them."

"Lady...they reported no survivors...and that was found to be true."

Samus grumbled, rubbed her temples and mumbled, "Bloody AI. I was taken with them, so of course being the only survivor they wouldn't have found me."

"So what did they do with you, Lady?"

"I could have sworn I told you before, Adam."

* * *

Young Samus woke slowly several hours later after the incident. Her muscles ached and she groaned. Ponchi nudged her shoulder with his nose. Slowly, she was able to stand. She looked around, trying to find her mom.

"Mama? Where are you?"

She couldn't find her mom, but before she had fallen she had seen her, she had been right there. Tears formed in her eyes. Why did this have to happen? Why had she been left behind? She went off in search of her mom and dad.

Elsewhere in the city, two cloaked figures walked through the wreckage. They sighed.

"Now what...?" The shorter one was sad.

"Send a signal to federation troops to come to K-2L, though I doubt they'll believe it." The second one was taller and thinner, sounded distant, but he was gloomy too.

There was a sigh as the first one spoke up again, "Everything is gone..."

There was a pause as the second one said something, "Perhaps it was the Pirates..."

"Wiped out...Not a single soul left alive." The shorter one continued as if the second one hadn't spoken at all.

A small shuffling noise caught his attention he froze. "Mama...Papa..." He turned to face the owner of the small voice, Samus.

"Oh, oh, it's...I can't believe it!"

Samus looked up at the avian creature, she was crying. But she stopped when she recognized him, "B-bird grandpa?"

"Samus!" He shouted. She ran over to him and cried even harder, Ponchi at her heels.

"Bird grandpa, mama, papa, where are they? I can't find them anywhere."

His eyes softened and he looked at her, almost eye to eye, he was just a little taller. "Samus, I know this will be hard for you to accept, but...I...you won't be able to see them anymore."

She quivered, "No! I want to see them! Why can't I see them?!" She broke up into hysterics, not quite knowing what else to do. Both of them waited for her to eventually quiet. She looked hopelessly up at them.

"Why? How come?"

"Because they're dead, Samus." Bird Grandpa was going against his better judgment, but he couldn't lie to the child.

"Why, why are they dead?" Her tears were used up, even though she felt like crying again.

"The colony was attacked by Space Pirates. They...killed everyone else." She sat down and bowed her head, pouting as the sun set. That meant Ridley had done it. She had thought he was her friend, but he wasn't.

"But...I don't know how to cook or anything." She said dejectedly.

"Why don't you come with us Samus? I'm sure you will be happier then if you were stay here."

"You mean I can come with you, Bird Grandpa?" She looked happy. The second spoke up.

"I'm not sure that would be a wise idea."

"I know, Grey Voice, but I can't leave her here. Come, Samus, to the ship."

In a matter of days they reached another colony. Samus wasn't much happier, she had cried herself out that day, she didn't cry much now. She held Ponchi in her arms as she crouched inside a building on the planet Zebes. Her eyes were sad, she didn't have any friends here. To top it off, Bird Grandpa and Grey Voice had left her here over an hour ago.

She decided it was time to look for Bird Grandpa. She walked through a maze, and found her way through and found him, "Grandpa..." Grey Voice was saying something but she didn't care what.

The Elder Choujin turned to face her, "Oh, Samus."

"This is no place for a little girl, where are my friends?" Her face and tone conveyed her thorough loneliness. A floating sphere with an eye mechanism floated down to her. She held Ponchi closer and turned so the cream animal was the farthest from this thing she could manage. Her eyes widened in fear. Bird Grandpa chuckled at her behavior.

"It won't hurt you, Samus, it's part of the planet's interface."

She trusted him, but the words did nothing to ease her fear. She turned her head away from it, blue eyes half lidded. And she shivered. The orb floated back up, and spoke with a mechanical whir and warbled tone.

"**This weak creature cannot possibly live in Zebes' natural environment. Existence is possible, but only for a few days.**"

"I know, Mother," Bird Grandpa said, resting his hands on his omnipresent cane, "But there is a way. Leave it to me and Grey Voice."

The orb floated up and down and finally agreed, "**All right.**"

Bird Grandpa looked down at her, "Come, Samus." Samus looked at him and nodded.

Bird Grandpa led her and Grey Voice to a large room. It had electronic wires all over the walls and the floor was three feet below the catwalk that led to an electronic panel and a large table of sorts, two yards in diameter, it was only two feet above the catwalk. Wires and rods held it up. Above it was a cylinder with wires hanging down from it that was also two yards in diameter. There was about twenty feet between both surfaces.

"Give Ponchi to Grey Voice, Samus. Don't worry, he'll be fine." Samus complied, and handed him over. "Now lie down, we want to check your health."

Samus had a feeling that wasn't it, but she complied anyway. She didn't really have a reason not to, besides, she ached and she was tired. Maybe she could fall asleep, she had always done that at the doctor's before, and she hadn't slept since that day. Bird Grandpa walked over to the panel along with Grey Voice. He pressed a button and Samus felt warm, she fell asleep almost instantly. The table rose three feet, the wires snapped to life and formed the top and the bottom of a sphere shape, an energy barrier snapped to life and a viscous liquid poured into the chamber. The liquid was made so that she could breath while in it, without needing special equipment. She curled up into a fetal position. Her clothes were dissolved into the liquid.

«**So, Old Bird, what are we doing?**» Grey Voice asked in a more natural language.

«**We will have to merge her DNA with parts of our own so she can gain our ability to adapt to this planet.**»

«**Is that such a good idea? We've never done such a thing before...but it is possible.**»

«**Exactly, besides, this will be the only way for her to live. If we turn her over to the Federation they'll perform experiments and tests on her…**»

«**Like this is any different?**»

The other Choujin did not bother to answer. He knew that this was different. It wasn't for why she had survived, it was for her survival.

It took a week, but it was successful. The liquid drained as her clothes reformed on her body. She was completely healed due to the material and the energy sphere disappeared as the wires went limp again and the platform fell. Ponchi ran over both Choujin's feet and nuzzled the girl.

Samus woke up groggily. "Ponchi?" She petted its head and looked up at the bird humanoid. "I'm sorry Bird Grandpa, I fell asleep."

«**That's quite all right, Samus. How are you feeling?**»

Samus stared, Old Bird was speaking a different language, but she understood him just fine. But she had never heard the language before in her life.

"Bird Grandpa?" She tried to stand but fell immediately from her legs giving out from under her, "I feel funny." She managed to crawl to the edge of the table.

"Give me you arm, Samus." She held out an arm. She felt a small jab of pain as Old Bird press a small tube against her wrist and a tiny needle pressed into her skin. She yelped.

"Bird Grandpa! What was that for?" But she felt more awake, fire moved through her blood, and the weakness and tire fell straight from her muscles, she felt more alive then she ever had.

"To wake you up. Feel better?"

Samus nodded and jumped onto the ground, she felt funnily lighter too. "Thanks, Bird Grandpa!"

Ten years later when Samus was thirteen she had to go to another lab. It was a smaller room, with a few wires hanging from the ceiling, a bed made so that Samus would be able to comfortably lie on her stomach and a panel on the wall. She looked around the room.

She had been raised by the Choujin, grew, and knew everything that had happened to her. When she had been three She had been transfected with Choujin DNA. The Choujin preferred to use merged, and looked at her disapprovingly when she used the word, but she found no word more fitting. She was neither human, nor Choujin-Zoku. There was another side effect from this transfection, and it wasn't nearly as useful as their empathic abilities, extra strength or anything; her DNA was modular, meaning she could host more sets of DNA with her own, and having more then three sets in her body would kill her, and she already had two. She'd have to make sure that she didn't get anyone else's DNA into her blood stream or spine. Otherwise she was done for.

She had grown her blonde hair long and wore it so it fell loosely about her waist and had several bangs. She was nearly five foot six in height, and looked almost exactly the way she would when she was an adult and weighed a lot more then she might if not for the fact that she had a lot of muscle mass. These abnormalities in what she would be like if she didn't have Choujin DNA were no doubt side effects from the transfection.

She had been taught how to use the augmented abilities, the genetic enhancements given to her, and was proficient in using them. By now she had all but forgotten how to speak English, taking to speaking the natural language of the race she lived with, but not what had happened to her when she was three. Ridley had killed her parents, and he had died in the explosion, but there were still Space Pirates out there. And they wanted to rule the galaxy and would kill all in their way. When she could, she was sure of one thing; she was going to kill them. All of them.

She had also been taught the mannerisms and speech of the Choujin, but she tended to use the ones she still held from being on her home world. She especially had a distaste for the long theories and the Choujin's natural inability to use simple terms and certainly had no qualms about voicing it whenever possible. She wasn't Choujin, so she didn't act a lot like one, nor was she completely human any more, so she didn't act like one either, some cross in between.

She looked questioningly at the old Choujin accompanying her, "Grey, what are we doing here?"

"Just a checkup, Hatchling."

She rolled her eyes, all the Choujin she met had a habit of calling her various names, always altering between Hatchling, Newborn, and Samus. Couldn't they pick one? "Is it going to be like the last time? If you're going to mess with my DNA again, I want to know."

"No, Samus. Not this time. This will be to give you something that will help you become a great warrior. We know you want to be one."

"Oh!" Her mood shifted instantly from suspicious to overjoyed, "What is it?"

"Just lie down on your stomach, Samus."

She complied, she heard a button pressed and part of the bed jumped out from the side, lifting up her left arm on a small platform. The wires converged around her wrist, it suddenly was blasted with cold and became numb. She lifted her head to see what was happening, but couldn't see through the wiggling wires. She winced as she felt something cut through her skin. She wanted to rip the wires of her wrist, but the Choujin training she had received told her that it wouldn't be a wise idea to do that and to keep still. That didn't mean she was good at controlling herself, her right arm twitched with the urge to rip the wires away from her.

All she could really do was wait to see what would happen. She felt something be pushed under her skin. Her arm visibly flinched as she suppressed the urge to rip the wires off her arm. The thing felt cold and bulky. Twenty minutes later she felt a laser pulse against her skin and the area warm up. She felt like her wrist was going to burst open. As soon as the wires created a big enough hole, she retracted her wrist and inspected it. At the top was a furious red scar, and she stared at it. There was a slight bulge in the skin. She looked questioningly at the elder.

"Grey?"

"A cybernetic implant. It's completely tuned to your genetic information and biological and mental status. Please stand up." Samus stood up, still confused, "Inside that implant is one of our power suits, the implant will adjust it to your body's conditions. Put your finger on top of that scar, good. Now please, move it over two inches to the right and press in."

Bright motes of light leapt out from her skin, startling her. The raced along her body; well over two-dozen of them. In a split-second she was encased in a metal suit. It was primarily yellow-orange, the chest and helmet were red. It had a green visor and an arm cannon that would fire bright blasts of energy.

Samus lifted her right arm to inspect the cannon, she nearly whacked her head, she moved faster with the suit then she did normally. That would become useful, once she could control the motions.

"You can will the suit off, tomorrow you will begin training with the suit." Samus nodded and the suit disappeared into her wrist. There was a small thud as she fell an inch and a half to the ground. It would take her a while to get used to that.

It took her nearly a year to learn how to just move in the suit, figure out how to activate all it's systems, and every feature of her new implant. She picked up everything, but it was harder to remember how it all worked in combat situations, and she found it difficult to aim the gun right at first. So she primarily relied on her close quarters combat skills until she learned how to aim the arm cannon, which was remarkably more difficult then a normal gun. Eventually using the suit became as easy as breathing, she learned that using her left arm to steady the cannon worked best for tricky shots.

However, the most difficult part, she found out, was keeping her emotions in check. When her emotions got too extreme, the suit would deactivate, so she had to learn how to fight stoically, she had never been raised to fight when she was younger. Sure, she hated losing, and she had always been the fastest, but still, she had always been a wild young girl, even when growing up on Zebes.

When she was fourteen she found out the worst part of being a combat warrior, she had to listen to orders. She was constantly berated by Grey Voice and Mother Brain for being herself, or not learning how to fight with her emotions in the back of her mind quick enough.

She sat on the edge of a building that overlooked some mountains. It was an old stone building. She sat with her head buried in her knees. She wasn't crying, she had never cried since she was three. Still, what she had done the previous night.

She had been the cause of the destruction of a race of perfectly innocent creatures, Iono Faria, Mother Brain had given the order, but without Samus disarming them they wouldn't have been killed. She hadn't meant for that to happen, but still, it had. She was angry, not only at herself, but at Mother Brain for giving that order, and the Space Pirates for causing the mayhem in the first place.

The wind blew her long hair chaotically. "Samus." Bird Grandpa said sternly, walking up behind her. She uncurled and looked at him, "It happened so fast, I didn't even notice it, but you have grown up."

She was startled by the statement, from the way she was treated she thought they would never think she had grown up, "Grandpa?"

He piled his taloned hands on his cane and looked hard into her blue eyes, "We have always been protectors of the galaxy. We Choujin-zoku have relied on the intelligence and judgment of Mother Brain, thusly a declining species. Samus, you have been here since childhood, yet we still don't know your exact significance. It's time for you to leave this nest."

Samus stood up, or rather jumped out of her seated position, "Wha-What? But don't I still need training!?"

The Choujin shook his head, "You've always had the 'power'. We've just forged your heart. And now it's time for you to build on it." He paused, "Samus, you have different roads ahead of you now. Its up to you to choose the right one. Be the true protector of the galaxy."

She turned to face the mountain and looked up, to the left of the sun, she let the words sink in. Slowly she understood the weight of the words, "I amI am the true protector of the galaxy!" Her eyes were serious, this had been alluded to her before, but this was the first time she had been told this directly. For the first time, she felt that maybe she actually had a further purpose in life then training on Zebes.

She turned to face the Honored Elder and smiled. She hated to leave this place, it had been the only world she had known since she was three. This was the only way of life she knew, but she would adapt. After all, wasn't that why she had been merged with Choujin DNA, to be able to adapt quickly?

"Come, Samus. We have many things to do before you are ready to leave, you will need a ship."

* * *

"Protector of the Galaxy?" Adam asked amused.

"Yes," Samus shot wearily back at him, "That's what the Choujin do. They protect the galaxy against threats. Since I have Choujin blood in me, that's my job too."

"I see, Lady. Very interesting. Oh, the Federation called while you were reminiscing. I've had them on hold for the last ten minutes. What should I tell them?"

"Tell them that I don't like them, they're nearing enemy status, and I hate their guts. They can all die, and they'd sure as hell better leave me alone for a long ass time." She said snappily. Her foot tapped patiently as she waited to hear that Adam had carried out her request.

Her mind trailed, it had been doing that a lot lately. She had been remembering a lot of things that she didn't really want to remember. But this was a pleasant memory that she rather liked. It was the first time she had met Adam.

* * *

In four years she was at her full height of six foot three and weighed nearly two hundred pounds, mainly muscle mass, for her form was toned and extremely slender. She had been going around, trying to figure out what to do. She tended to avoid everyone, walking in the shadows. It made sense, she was almost an alien here, the only way she could blend in was by her looks. Her mannerisms, on the other hand, she noticed with slight irritation, were not entirely human anymore. And even her outfit didn't blend in perfectly. Her only bonus was that she spoke like a human, that was what she had kept through the years, never using the elongated complex speech, but simple human phrases and words, even if it was in a different language.

Her ship landed on the Earth colony F-8T, it was a small world, primarily forests. It was actually smaller then the planet in the Earth system called Pluto. The sleek red keeled gunner ship landed, this wasn't exactly normal either, so she hid it in the forest. She jumped out of the hatch. She was eighteen now and had floated about in space for the past four years.

She deactivated her suit, and it disappeared in a flash. She still had her long hair. Her blue eyes weren't as wild as they had been when she was younger, they were more serious but she wasn't completely stoic.

She wore a blue jump suit with metallic gray parts on her forearms and calves and pink symbols on her back, the backs of her hand and her name was stitched in pink in Choujinese script over her heart. She wore this instead of the cream tank top and shorts she had worn on Zebes. Old Bird had given her the jumpsuit to wear before she had left. She pressed a hidden button under the skin of her left wrist and her outfit changed. It had an orange coloration, a tank top and a pair of shorts. Along with a pair of orange boots and black socks.

Ponchi walked by her feet. The creature was nearly as old as her, and had accompanied all of her missions, but always stayed in her ship. Ponchi had developed a large fluffy mane that looked like a collar and a larger tail. It was still healthy. Samus had researched it over the years, but couldn't find out what sort of creature Ponchi was, but he was generally her only companion on long voyages. She was glad to have Ponchi's company, and he was perfectly healthy too. Samus wondered occasionally if he would live as long as she would.

She broke through the trees and made her way to a small inn. Ponchi scrambled up her back and onto her shoulder as she walked in. Samus discreetly made her way to a corner. She watched the behavior of the people in the bar like part of the inn. Something in the center of the room caught her attention. She watched as two men arm-wrestled each other. One of them beat the other fairly quickly, and as Samus watched for the next fifteen minutes he beat down every opponent that came at him in the room.

"Is that everyone? Anyone else want a second go?"

Samus stood up and moved from the shadows. "Can I try?" All eyes focused on her and scrutinized her. She stood still and didn't move a muscle.

"Well, I don't know, I wouldn't want to hurt a lady such as yourself." Samus was, in return, scrutinizing this man with the natural abilities she gained from the Choujin. His tone held nothing ominous, she merely sensed the mannerisms she had directed towards what were called gentlemen.

"You wouldn't have to worry about that." The muscles in her right armed flexed and tensed.

"Well," He looked her straight in the eye for five full seconds. Samus held his stare down with just as much tension, "all right then, take a seat."

"The Lieutenant Commander's going to win."

"Yeah, no one can beat him."

Samus and the Lieutenant Commander readied for the match. They were stalemated for about a minute before Samus managed to break the stalemate and win. After winning Samus sat back in her seat and crossed her arms, grinning triumphantly, her win loss record was now 100-0 respectively.

He laughed after a while, "Never lost to someone before. Good match, great job," he held his hand out, and Samus shook it. She broke the grasp and stood. Ponchi, who had been sitting quietly on the floor during the match quickly scrambled up on her shoulder again. There were a lot of strangers, and he only felt comfortable in such a situation on Samus's shoulder.

"Is that your pet, Lady?"

"Friend." Samus quickly corrected him, Ponchi only stayed with her because he wanted to, Samus had never forced him to stay with her. Ponchi could have stayed on Zebes, but he chased her heels and wouldn't let her leave without him.

Samus spent a night at the inn and when she woke up in the morning she went directly into the forest, after turning her outfit into her blue jumpsuit. There was no need to wear civilian clothes after all. She stretched and jumped into a tree. Resting in the branch she wondered what to do for the day.

Hours later Samus was found watching the group from the inn the previous night. They were a lot less loud and wild now, Samus thought it had something to do with the rancid smell she had caught on their breath. Well, all of them except for the Lieutenant Commander.

Samus was hiding in the shadows, pretty well hidden, but she still got spotted. "Ah, Lady, you can come out you know."

Samus walked out a moment later, Ponchi at her heels. How had the Lieutenant Commander spotted her?

"I saw your friend's tail," He said like he had read her mind, "So, can we help you?"

Samus shrugged, "Not really. Just bored."

"I'm Adam. That's Zack. Over there is Robert. The one in the back is Walter. The short one is Charles. The one over there is Ryan. He's Tim. That's Rick. And this is Patrick."

"Samus."

* * *

Samus shook her head, trying to focus. She closed her eyes and opened them again. She hadn't always hated the Federation. But with the Biologic Space Laboratory and SR-388, her views had changed. They had wanted to keep the X and were cloning Metroid. The two greatest threats to the galaxy, and they wanted to keep them. That wasn't going to happen on her watch. It hadn't either.

Now to add on top of that they had been chasing her down for the past week without much reprieve. She couldn't even go planet-side anymore. Couldn't they just leave her be? Was it really that wise for them to try and search for her while fighting the pirates? Was it that wise for her to make two enemies? The pirates could win with the two old allies fighting each other and weakening each other. Samus wondered idly why they didn't realize that.

Or perhaps they did realize that and she was letting her old temper get the best of her once more and _she _was making the situation worse then it had to be. She shook the thought from her head. There was absolutely no way that was it.

A small creature coated in blue fur climbed up the chair onto her lap. It's underside and cheeks were coated in a pale pink fur and two fuzzy antennae poked out from its head. Samus reached out an armored hand and mindlessly scratched between its two conic ears.

* * *

Nineteen year-old Samus patted the head of an older Ponchi. His silver mane was nearly the size he was. His tail was half the size of the mane. Two silver bunny ears flopped onto Samus's lap as she scratched in between his ears. He buried his nose into the uniform shirt she wore. Samus smiled absentmindedly as she looked out of the window.

The curse-laden orders of trainers, yells from trainees and gunfire made it through the inch thick Cordite walls of the female barracks. She started suddenly as the door opened. Samus tried to shove Ponchi off her lap. The small creature fell to the floor lightly and jumped back onto her lap, staring up at her curiously. Samus tried again to push him off, but he stayed, jumping over her hands as she tried to force him down into hiding again.

She looked nervously over to the door and saw, to her dismay, two ranking officers with their guns trained on Ponchi and herself. Samus stood up, forcing Ponchi to stand on the floor. She snapped to a crisp salute while glaring at them.

"Sirs, men aren't allowed in here." She said without hesitation. She never had qualms with calling out a ranking officer's mistakes. She hated commanding officers, mainly because they ordered her around.

"Oh, shut the hell up, Aran. You're disobeying the rules even more."

Samus's mouth tightened, but otherwise her face remained passive, "What do you mean, sirs? The drill instructors said specifically that I could not join in training with the other female recruits today."

The first one, the one that had told her to shut up, grabbed the wrist of the hand that was still in a salute and dragged her out of the barracks. She snarled at him, but walked along, somewhat resisting the entire way until they were out in sunshine. The other man picked up Ponchi by the tail.

As soon as they were outside and the entirety of the trainees and trainers outside were focused on her she twisted her arm to make him let her go. She took a good four steps back and looked straight through his head with smoldering angry blue eyes, but a completely passive expression.

Samus forced her voice to a cold, calm, quiet tone that scared everyone on the field. "Could you explain what you said before, _sir_?" The emphasis on the honorific didn't come from respect, but spite.

He waved vaguely in Ponchi's direction, "That, trainee. What is that exactly?"

"I don't know, sir."

"Don't play stupid with me, trainee. What. Is. That?"

"A creature of unknown race, sir." All the time her voice had gained an undertone of impatience, but like her face it was otherwise nearly passionless. Meanwhile the officer's face had been growing red with anger and his voice showed his sheer frustration at Samus.

His voice was strained as he spoke, "Drop and give me fifty."

Samus quickly complied, doing the fifty pushups that were required. Halfway through Ponchi managed to wiggle out of the other officer's grasp and jumped onto her back. He weighed only ten pounds and it didn't affect Samus's speed in the slightest. When she was done she waited for Ponchi to scramble onto the ground before she would get up.

Instead of hearing Ponchi as he landed on the ground and looked up at her, she heard the single shot of a gun. The source was the first officer's pistol. She felt dead weight fall onto the small of her back and then a thud as the weight hit the ground. Samus didn't stand but turned over and crouched next to the creature. She rested a hand over his chest, and didn't feel his normal rapid heartbeat. Nothing at all pulsed against her palm. A form of agony and sorrow washed over her face, buried by yellow bangs, before she stood and looked the offending officer in the eye.

Her usual undisturbed features had been arranged to show her anger at the officer. Her blue eyes narrowed in frustration and loathing. Her shoulders set themselves at sharp angles, her fists clenched. Her mouth tightened.

"What was that for?"

The officer smiled at her anger, and mocked her. "I'm sorry, what did you say?"

The corner of a mouth twitched and fists tightened even more, "What was that for, _sir_?"

"No trainee is allowed to have pets. You know that."

"C'jinlor. That wasn't my pet."

"Then why are you so angry?"

"Because." 'Ponchi was my friend.' Like she was going to tell him that. He didn't deserve to know that. All that he deserved was to be pummeled. So Mush Face was going to be his new name, apparently.

It would have been his new name if it wasn't for the voice that called out to the group, "Aran!" Samus recognized the voice and turned to face it's owner. She was still angry, but she saluted as everyone else did.

"At ease." The man called out leisurely as he strode into the scene. Although ease wasn't his thoughts, nor was it Samus's, or anyone else's. "Aran, you are restrained to Beta sector until someone is sent to get you. You two, especially you Patrick, are to accompany me to my quarters. Everyone else, get on with what you were doing."

Everyone snapped a crisp salute, everyone except for Samus, but they all called out, "Sir, yes, sir." Samus turned to leave. She paused as if rethinking her actions and picked up Ponchi's body. Then she left, head turned towards the ground, face shaded by blonde bangs.

In an hour, Samus found herself seated in front of the commander's desk. She didn't feel like meeting his eyes. Those same dark eyes that she had examined a year ago.

"Commander..." She began, having no idea what to say.

He sighed and cut Samus off, "Why didn't you tell me you had brought Ponchi with you? I would have taken care of him." Adam looked at Samus.

Samus crossed her arms, leaned back in the chair and glowered, "Is that what this is about, Adam?"

Adam shook his head, "No. I need to write you up for breaking rules, disappearing from training, and having an animal in the barracks." He held up his hand to cut her off, "I know that he was your friend, lady. But the rules are the rules. I would have hoped that you would follow them."

Samus made a disinterested irritated sound, "Whatever. What about those others?"

"Patrick and Tim? Oh, they're on K.P. duty for the next month. As for you, I'll get back to you when I can think of a punishment. Now then," Adam said as he settled back into his chair, pleasure draining from his tone along with the friendly smile, "why exactly weren't you training, Aran?"

"Because, the drill instructors said I could not drill with the other female officers today."

Adam frowned, "Again? Why?"

"Because they said that I am too strong to train with them, I become bored too easily, I find the tasks they set for us menial, and they cannot spend the energy to make it harder on the others, sir. May I leave now?"

"Alright. Return to the barracks."

Adam stared at the door after Samus closed it. When she had originally requested to join the Navy, Adam had had no problem with it. He had seen how she had managed to best his team by herself without breaking a sweat. In training she had proved herself a sharpshooter, a tactical planner, very stealthy, in possession of an eerily accurate sixth sense, and stronger then most male officers. However, all of those talents were wasted on the fact that she had such a problem with authority. Adam had to wonder if she would even make it past boot. She would be a problematic officer at best if she made it.

Now he had to find out something to do with her so that she could even do all the required training activities and hours. If it wasn't for the fact that her figure was as good as her skills were, he would make her train with the male officers. But she would probably only serve as a distraction to the other boots.

He filled out a report on the incident and ran a hand through his hair, there was only one thing to do at this point. The Federation needed a soldier like Samus to take on the pirates. He had to make sure she that could serve.

"Drop and give me one hundred!" Adam shouted at Samus the next morning. It was early and none of the other trainees were up.

Samus immediately stopped doing jumping jacks and hit the dirt. She complied as Adam ordered her to go faster. There was no rest for Samus as she had to immediately jump up and run the mile course that wound around the camp.

Adam thought to himself. At this point in time there were none of the other officer programs running that would challenge Samus enough. So he ran her through certain exercises every day that fit the regimen of a program well beyond boot camp. However, his C.O. had given him the okay on doing so. He understood that Samus was very well one of the most capable potential officers that had ever been at the camp, and that the Federation needed her talents. After the next week she would be shoved into another more strenuous program to work on her team cohesion.

The course that scaled a steep hill strained new comers to their limits. Adam found no difficulty hefting the fifty-kilo hiking sack and running up the course. He was hoping that it would strain Samus.

"Sir, what happened to the other trainees?"

He'd have to be damned if he knew how she could talk. Even though it wasn't very straining on his body, Adam knew he wouldn't be able to find the breath to speak normally. The first thing he would do when he got the chance would be to find out what she was made from. Adam answered her question when they got to the top.

"They're sleeping and will be working on an easier program than you will be."

"Understood, sir."

* * *

"Hey, Adam?" Samus called out.

"Yes, lady?"

"How come you never did put me into another program?"

"Because we needed to get as many soldiers as we could after the Pirates devastated an entire fleet. The Federation needed you."

"Probably still does. What do you think?"

Adam made no response to the question. It was rhetorical. The answer to them both was obvious. It still needed her, now more then ever.

* * *

Samus sat calmly in the low chair. The room surrounding her was hard to focus on; its walls were an inky black. The glowing white orb table in front of her hurt her eyes. However she knew this was part of a test. She leaned back in the chair with her arms crossed.

A moment later somebody enter the room, only a silhouette as light poured in from a doorframe.

"Come on, Aran."

Samus wore her jumpsuit. She stood and followed, hair pulled into a tight ponytail. She had quit the military a month or two after Adam had been KIA. She had lost all interest in being a member of the Federation Troops, especially after a fellow officer had told her about the newly formed Space Hunter Organization.

They came to another room, this time the walls were white, round, and the only furniture were white chairs and a white table. The varying color palates bothered Samus, but she ignored it.

The man and Samus sat on opposite ends of a table. Samus twisted the chair she sat in around so her front leaned against the back of the chair.

"You said you wanted to become a Space Hunter, Aran." What he had said was more of a statement for formalities rather then making sure he was correct.

"Yes, I did." She replied. There was no harm in replying just in case he wanted a response.

"You know with a blacked out record and no special abilities, we won't be able to let you in."

Samus strummed her fingers on the table, "That's all I need to get in? I thought there'd be some sort of boot camp, or at least a test of some sort."

"There is, but you need to prove yourself worthy of us spending the time on you."

"Alright, I can't really show you much of anything for the moment because I'm too far from my ship, but..." Samus closed her eyes and focused. She thought back to being on Zebes, back to being trained by the Chozo, back to her altered DNA, back to the rigorous mental training she had been put through at the age of five. After three full seconds had gone by she reopened her eyes. They were no longer blue, but a sharp clear green. Her eyes fixed, unblinking and unfocused for a full minute. Then Samus closed her eyes and reopened them, and they were back to blue. Then she continued, "I can show that I'm not really very normal."

The officer stared at Samus, speechless for a few seconds, "Are you human?"

"Sort of, sir. I was born human enough."

"Tell me about yourself then."

"You wouldn't believe me no matter where I started. But, if you insist, I'm the sole survivor of colony that was put under Pirate Attack. An alien race found me and raised me. I was sent off when I was 14, one of their warriors. I wandered the galaxy for a few years, when I found out about the Federation Troops I signed up to join because the Space Hunters didn't exist back then. You should know the rest from there."

"What colony? Which race? You need to be more specific."

"You really wouldn't believe either answer." Samus said nonchalantly. She rested her arms on the top of the back of the chair and leaned her chin on top of the new rest.

"Besides," Samus continued, "Specifics and I don't get along very well on that subject." She scrutinized the man, recognizing the singular gold star on the forearm of his jacket so she added that. But she made no recognition of it.

"Do you know who I am, Aran?"

"Quite. You're Rear Admiral Felipe O'Neal, recently promoted for taking on a Space Pirate Fleet with your men and beating them with minimal casualties." She grinned in triumph to herself at his shock, which only registered for a microsecond, "Come on, Admiral. I just quit the military, it hasn't been years, yet."

"Alright. Aran, the only bad marks on your otherwise excellent record are a general sarcasm to orders that irritated your commanding officers.

"The orders were redundant and obvious. Besides, I never questioned them." She pointed out.

O'Neal continued on, ignoring her. He was thumbing through a data pad, "And a demotion for...starting a fight, and nearly killing the other officer."

Her mouth twisted at the last statement. She had never been given much of a chance to argue with her demotion, and that had been her absolute last straw. She had stayed only one extra month after the incident to make it seem like it hadn't been the cause of her leaving the military. "The other officer involved had a habit of stalking me when off duty, sir. He tried three times to view me while taking a shower. My commanding officer at the time never listened to me when I tried to complain about it. After the third attempt I had had enough."

After Adam's death she had been reassigned to another squad, and gotten a superior of a very different breed then Adam. This officer hadn't so much cared for his men unless he needed them to do something important. He had a habit of stating the obvious, which had irritated Samus to a certain degree. What had annoyed her more, however, was the great disregard of military protocol that he practiced. Samus was pretty sure that after her complaints about the stalking, her superior had given him the same off-duty hours as her just to spite her. Samus had kept all her emotions in check before the duty shift change, and it was only afterwards that she had begun to display the sarcasm that her commander had put on her record.

"I see..."

Samus stared at her arm, "I hadn't expected him to be that weak though. That report should say..."

"Excessive use of force, five broken ribs, punctured lung, and a dislocated shoulder. Two blows all told." He looked up at Samus. "You have to understand, Aran, we don't want such bellicose officers in the Space Hunters. We can't have a Space Hunter fighting Federation Officers in any form. No matter what."

Samus frowned. The situation had tried her patience. The Chozo had always scolded her for her quick fire temper. She considered. She couldn't fight with Federation officers, not even an argument. Samus had proven in the past that she could reign in her temper, so long as she was never betrayed. She had felt betrayed by Mother Brain, Grey Voice, and her latest superior.

"I could handle that, sir."

O'Neal nodded, "Good, Aran. We had already decided to let you in, if you proved your mental reasoning up for it. We didn't want to let someone with as much merit as you out of our hands."

"Of course," Samus said, "Thank you, Admiral."


	61. Chapter 33 Ending

The years passed and peace failed throughout the galaxy. The alliance between all the races was tentative at best, so after twenty years of peace, it was inevitable that it all fall into chaos and disorder. This was the natural order of life. But all that remained of those that had protected the galaxy were bones. The old, wise, and battle experienced had died long before their time, ten years prior. The younger generation was not nearly as adept, but they fought to safeguard and bring back a measure of peace was valiantly as their predecessors. Above all those in this younger generation, two young children rose above the rest. Sporting archaic armor systems and riding a ship too large for them, they fought harder and won more battles then anyone else. All hope of the galaxy rode upon one boy and one girl.

* * *

What was that you ask? Is it a hint at a sequel?

No. Sorry. It wouldn't be nearly as fun as this story was. I just needed a little blurb for this next chapter. So long as there's something relevant to the story, I can add as many authorial notes as I want. And there's going to be a lot of them. Focused on what you say? Explaining the cannon in this story and my fanon.

Fanon is information that the fans make up about something. Cannon is official. I just don't want anybody not entirely versed with the series to get my fanon mixed up with cannon.

The Facts:

Almost everything about Halo. However, any Spartans listed that was not Li, Vinh, Isaac, William, Anton, Linda, Kelly, Grace, Fred, Kurt, and John are not official. Hence why I killed them off.

As for Metroid. Samus was infused with Chozo and Metroid DNA Samus's old CO was Adam. Samus had a pet named Ponchi. Samus has been considered mythological. Ridley was responsible for her parents' deaths. The Chozo raised Samus on Zebes. The place she was born on was K-2L. The Chozo can manipulate energy, this is briefly mentioned in a loose, but factual, way in Prime 2. Metroid are weak against the cold, and so is Samus. Samus got the ability to adapt of harsh environments from the Chozo. Samus can eat X and get energy from them.

The stuff I made up:

Almost all of the abilities Samus got from her transfection of DNA. That the Metroid can transfuse other Metroids with energy that they steal. That Samus could do this. That Samus would need to be in her jump suit to do so. That Samus was in service for a long time. Samu's age. Most of Samus's past. Everything about Space Hunters. The implant in Samus's wrist. That Samus and Chozo can "read" minds. That Samus's body would be able to absorb more DNA. That she would be in danger if she had any other specie's DNA in her body. The red Phazon creature they fought. That the Covenant and Pirates would get along. That Samus was in the military and was ranked as Lieutenant.

And of course, the entire plot of the storyline.

Check out my other stories. They're fun. « Shameless self-advertising

All I have ever needed to say, has just been, or already been, said.

With much love,

.:Digi:.


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